


The Road Past Bratislava

by Arisusan



Series: The Road [3]
Category: D.Gray-man
Genre: Adventure, Canon Compliant, Fantasy, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-07
Updated: 2018-02-28
Packaged: 2018-12-24 21:25:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 26,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12021297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arisusan/pseuds/Arisusan
Summary: (Another continuation in the story of Daisya Barry and the heck happened so that Kanda Yuu didn't immediately bit his head off and yell at him as he does with Lavi, Allen, Komui, Miranda, Tiedoll, every character in the series, etc. etc. Feat. too much imagery, pathetic fallacy, complicated friendships, your ex-gf interfering with your life even when you don't knew they're you're ex-gf and they don't know it either, yelling, and many more.)Daisya and Kanda are sent to investigate a series of disappearances around a mouldering old abbey deep in the forest. Though the mission and its fallout, they learn how little they know about themselves and one another, and they face a choice between sticking with their ideals (living it up and finding That Person respectively), or sticking with their instincts.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Work notes: this will be shorter than the other parts, as it should be (unless I change my plans) just one continuing story instead of a bunch of episodes. It's kind of similar to The Road to Budapest, in that you've got one big road trip of doom, but it's just two characters. They still bitch incessantly at and about each other.
> 
> Chapter notes: Extreme artistic license taken with geography, here. I just took the first name starting with 'B' that came to mind, and went with it. Also this is short and sparse, so hopefully the dialogue makes up for the pacing.

Some days' walk from Bratislava, people had been disappearing at random for at least a century.

No one paid it much mind, and the disappearances had been spread around, so it had taken a while for it to get on the finders' radar. After all, the sons and daughter of the countryside all griped and swore that they'd find their way to Vienna some day. Even if they left what little they had behind, it was easy to assume they'd stolen away for a fresh start. Only when a finder, on his way to the Ukrainian Carpathians, disappeared did the Order pay attention. All finders were required to check in at least once a week with the Order; the more frequently, the better. Extensions were only granted in more remote stretches of Lapland, or in any active war zones.

The finder called Henrik had been off the grid for a month, when a team was sent to check for him. After that, it had taken them a while to get the location of the Innocence. There were no akuma at the source, and no historical records to point to its location.

Some days' walk from Bratislava, the bell of an abandoned abbey still rang, too quietly for anyone nearby to hear, but loud enough to sound through the building, vibrating through the mouldering stone. Block by block, it crumbled, built with too much wood in the skeleton, used as a fortress and burnt down by rival factions too many times.

It wasn't even a proper abbey, but an old dark-age edifice that once held an order of monks, long before. Half-castle, half-church, its black outline bit a chunk out of the customarily grey skies, rising above the teeth of the spruces.

It was not a friendly place.

The finder from the team who had entered beneath the gothic arches of the doorway had thought that, and had been right.

Approximately ten minutes later, he had turned to hear the bell tolling two o' clock in the afternoon.

Approximately ten seconds later, he was dead, the victim of a tragic accident involving an ill-supported stone in the arches overhead.

Two days later, his three companions met similar, yet individually unique fates. One had her head crushed in. One felt his shattered ribs digging into his lungs in the moments before he died. The third went more slowly; unable to withstand the pain of two broken legs, and unable to call for help, he used his emergency kit. It included a needle, thread, some painkillers, a flint and tinder, some gauze, and, most importantly, a razor and whetstone.

By the time the abbey was determined to be the source of the Innocence, the dull towns, with their dull grey skies and their rain, had claimed more finders in an investigation than were lost in most missions.

And so, in a stroke of military genius which, at face value, paralleled Napoleon's invasion of Russia, a pair of fourteen-year-olds were sent out to deal with the problem.

This decision was not nearly so stupid as it seemed. These two children had survived far more than most of the adults in their place, and were far more expendable than the adults whose experience rivalled theirs.

...

It was raining. Again.

The road was basically one big, rutted stream of mud. Even beneath the trees the water poured in rivulets, off the needles of the spruces. It soaked in through every stitch of fabric, no matter how waterproof, and dripped down into your boots. The best you could say about it was that it cleaned the old dirt out, and replaced it with new, more interesting mud.

After this mission, even Daisya might be tired of it. It had rained every damn day since they'd set out over a week ago. It wasn't even the sheer amount of rain that bothered him — it was the wet clothes that weren't dry even after a night in front of the fire, and that started to smell mouldy after a few days rolled up.

And, in addition to clothes that became plain old unpleasant after being wet for a few days, there was Kanda, who became plain old unpleasant after being wet for a few minutes. Daisya would have sworn he was part cat or something, with the way he grumbled.

"It's about five more miles to the village, right?" Daisya asked, glancing up at the sky. He could still see a faint glimmer of sunlight through the iron grey, but looked down when some of the water splashed into his eyes.

"Kanda?"

The reply he heard was just a couple of snapped off words.

"Shut. Up."

Kanda stalked along beside him, giving the impression of a twig about to snap. Both of them were soaking wet, but Kanda was taking it worse. Actually, he hadn't told Daisya to shut up much since that thing with the river bed some months after they'd met, so for him to be this angry was an event to be remembered.

Where were we? Oh, yeah. The sky. They'd run into the weather that had been on the horizon that morning, but the trees made it difficult to gauge how far away that was. Daisya had estimated six miles based on the time they'd travelled. The point where it start to hurt, but not too much.

Speaking of which, he'd discovered an ability to guess distances pretty well a few months back. He'd had it before, but he hadn't really thought about it until he was running hell-for-leather away from a bunch of akuma and ran into an illusion that Isaac had forgotten to undo. He'd had to be really, really sure of exactly how far away the river was.

Isaac was a bit absentminded. Just a few weeks ago he'd forgotten what happened when you got grazed by a bullet and forgot to slice off that bit of skin.

Poor Isaac. All that was left was his Innocence.

Now only Jeanne, Kiki, and Idris were left of the kids from three years ago.

Daisya had been off with Marie at the time, but Helle had kicked the bucket when a mission got caught up with a Noah. A couple of grown-ups had gone to the same fate. When they'd found them, they were all humming the same tune.

None of them survived long after.

There'd been another new kid that came in six months ago, but he'd disappeared pretty soon after that. Lenalee said he was a bit insane, so they were keeping him in the hospital until he accepted his Innocence.

He remembered that Lenalee had rejected her Innocence as well.

She was probably just trying to forget. They were like brother and sister, but Daisya knew more than anyone that it didn't mean they shared secrets. It just meant that the secrets didn't matter. You screwed up? Doesn't matter. You ate the leftover cake  _specifically_  labeled "do not touch"? You're dead to me.

Hard to imagine that he'd ever start to miss his siblings. The yearly trips back home cure it pretty quick, though. Last time his brothers hadn't spoken to each other the whole time. Some argument over a girl. No, Lenalee was better than a sibling. Daisya wouldn't press her to find out.

Still, it would be nice to—

His train of thought was derailed by a slipping noise, and the sound of a boot landing heavily in mud.

"I hate fucking branches."

The muffled swearing came from beside him, as Kanda found he was standing on a mud-covered branch instead, not actual mud. Daisya had made the mistake a few hours ago, as the splash of dark grey-brown up his side attested. Daisya couldn't resist a dig as revenge for Kanda's earlier grin.

"Don't like it, don't fuck 'em."

After a tense moment or two, Kanda regained his footing, and shot a customary glare at Daisya.

"I hate  _you_."

Daisya clapped his hands together dramatically, and grinned.

"Hey, nice! You actually got it this time."

Kanda made a face, but quickly looked upwards, to the sky above the forest. Something might have caught his eye. Nah. He was probably just trying to hide his embarrassment, the sucker.

"Shut up," Kanda said quietly, as if reading his mind. Impressive.

The trees around them were almost impossibly tall and dark, but hunched over. They looked like they were scared of something. Maybe the rain, but it was already here.

Daisya quickly took stock of the surroundings. Mud, spruce, fir, some oak, greys skies, not much wind, noise of rainfall and not much else. Kanda, he could feel, but there wasn't the sneaking eyes-on-back-of-head sensation he'd learned to look for. There shouldn't be any akuma this far away. Noah rarely bothered to come out for most occasions, though there had been a few more sightings than average in the past ten years. Besides, they weren't worth worrying about — if you met them, you were dead. If you didn't, you stood a chance. No use trying to fight them.

Oh, well, it was always a good time to have another go at Kanda

Who was oddly relaxed. No frown, no bristling anger, no nothing. Very exciting, Daisya was sure. Kanda always relaxed when he didn't know what else to feel. Right now, he just glanced casually around the trees, instead of skewering Daisya with a glare.

Whatever he'd seen, it was nothing major. Daisya fell back into position about a foot behind Kanda.

"So Kanda," he started, "You didn't tell me you were telepa–"

He didn't finish the sentence. A lighting-fast movement had knocked the air out of him.

More precisely, Daisya's feet had slid out beneath him as Kanda knocked him sideways and covered his mouth. The rain stopped pattering on his hood as he was pushed, then pulled in one smooth movement off the road, beneath the thick cover of the trees.

"Ow!" he whined, "What the–"

"I said  _be quiet_ ," Kanda hissed, grabbing his shoulders and driving him further back, away from the road.

A fraction of a second later, some amount told Daisya he'd been knocked backwards into a tree trunk. These spruces were pretty tough on the skin, even with the painkillers and fifteen thousand damn layers of regulation disguise on top of regulation uniform.

"What's going on?" he asked softly, flicking his eyes up. He could see the road over Kanda's shoulder, but nothing seemed to be there.

Kanda's eyes slid sideways, then back to Daisya. He hadn't taken his hands away. It must have been serious.

"I thought I saw an akuma," Kanda muttered, "If you see it, pretend we're arguing travellers, or something. I don't think it saw us."

Daisya whistled softly.

"Damn. Aren't we still a few miles out?"

"Yeah, but the akuma seem to like the villages around it better. Probably the Innocence is protecting itself."

The rain kept coming down under the trees, pouring off the needles and blocking the sounds of their hushed conversation. This place was pretty gloomy. Except at night. At night it was just creepy.

"Got it. We should probably fetch it pretty soon, before old man Marie starts worrying."

"Yeah, it's been pretty slow. No thanks to you."

Daisya grinned.

"Slow and steady wins the race."

"No, it doesn't."

It might have been just Daisya's imagination, but a shadow seemed to fall over the road. The light was too dim to tell. Whatever, it was, akuma attack would be pretty in this weather. Slipping would not be fun.

He pressed his shoulder blades against the tree bark, using the pressure to detach the bell from his hood.

"I think I saw it," he whispered, flicking his eyes to the right as an illustration for Kanda.

He felt Kanda's fingers tense, and their grip loosed in anticipation of his movement.

Quietly, he let the Charity Bell drop into his hand. The faint ringing noise was almost covered up by the rain.

There — something was moving overhead.

He broke loose from Kanda's hold, and gave himself a running start.

They had to get this one before it started shooting at them, and warned the others. Kanda was too short-range for that.

So Daisya had to do it. Using a verbal trigger would be stupid, 'cause there were probably more around, but he'd have to work around the weaker attack.

Well, he thought, mid-leap, maybe he could afford a murmur. Just not a yell.

"Charity Bell, activate."

He kicked the Innocence while still in midair to avoid slipping and skewing the course, and watched it blaze up into the sky. Come on, come on…

There was the deep, rich sound of a church bell, and a couple of shreds drifted caught on branches high above. When Bell soared back, he caught it on his foot.

"Hey, Kanda," he said quietly, "D'you think it's still safe to use the road? This guy might have had buddies."

Kanda, with the stealth of a cat, had appeared beside him. He moved fast.

"We're still in disguise, and there aren't any Noah involved, so it's better if we go on the road. We'll look suspicious if we walk in the trees."

"Roger that."

As if nothing had happened, the two sodden figures kept on their path.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [x-files theme playing in the background]
> 
> The lyrics are entirely irrelevant, but Moonspell's Night Eternal and Erasure's Smoke and Mirrors are two songs that evoke the kind of creepy, grey-black solitude that I was going for with this, but likely failed to conjure. And, as usual, I promise there is a point to the story, which will hopefully become a little clearer near the end of this arc. I think this might be my 100k milestone? If not, it's the next chapter!
> 
> (okay i realize this all sounds pretentious as fuck but w/e. pls read, love you guys)

It was one night and one day later when the two exorcists passed under the abbey's arches.

…

After the storms, the sky had turned clear and cloud-stained, with white strands pulling across the sky like stretched cotton. In the glow of dusk, there seemed to be a violet light cast across the blackened stone and wood.

…

After the incident on the road, they'd pressed through into the night to find their contact finder, who hadn't been much use. The facts, as they knew them, were:

1\. People disappeared everywhere around the abbey.

2\. Finders found akuma everywhere around the abbey, and caught them.

3\. Finders disappeared  _at_  the abbey.

4\. No single finder had returned from the abbey alive.

There had been nothing for it but to get a good day's sleep.

Daisya looked up at the heavy wooden gates, and whistled. They were embedded in the high walls, and the tar-stained, decaying timbers were reinforced with a grid of black iron, sideways planks of different grains nailed in, and the original great metal hinges like fleur-de-lis reaching at intervals up the side. A relic from an age when your neighbours might well have tried to break in, and enlisted an army to do so.

"Now doesn't  _that_ look creepy," he commented, "You sure we should be doing this at night?"

Kanda nodded brusquely, walking past Daisya along the damp grass.

"The sooner we get this over with, the better. Come on."

The doors were open. Daisya might say they almost looked inviting, if they'd been painted a nice cheery yellow, or something, and weren't a good twenty feet high.

Something wasn't right. He hung back, scuffing his heel along the ground, kicking up the dirt. Maybe it was just the Innocence. Maybe it was an akuma.

"Hey, you coming or what?"

He looked up to meet Kanda's eyes, as the he'd turned around in the doorway.

"Yeah, yeah."

Daisya tripped forward, and Kanda muttered something he couldn't hear, then started walking again.

The moment before he stepped over the threshold, time stopped.

Or at least that's what it seemed like.

The stones in the archway weren't as solid as Daisya wanted. They might have been reinforced with mud and sand, from the original, but that wasn't too sturdy. Not at all.

People's minds don't work properly, when things get serious.

To be more exact about this whole situation: Daisya saw a block about a foot square fall from the top of the gate. Instinctively, he knew it would reach the point about five feet above the ground before Kanda moved any further forward, at this pace.

This all happened in the blink of an eye.

" _Kanda–!_ "

Kanda's reflexes kicked in when the block had cleared about half the distance to the ground, and he leapt forwards, crossing the threshold, and the stone thudded down where he had been standing maybe half a second ago.

Daisya felt something strange run up his spine, and curl in his chest at the sound. It had all the heavy finality of a lead coffin dropped into a grave.

The sound of a sword slipping out of its sheath unfroze him, and his eyes focused, seeing Kanda waving him on. What he said could have been "careful," could have been, "hurry up."

Stone grating on stone did the rest of the work, spurring him into a run, and he crossed over with the odd, flatfooted gait of any otherwise graceful person trying to run on ice or wet grass.

"Hey, what was that?"

"Don't know."

Daisya pulled up beside Kanda, skidding to a halt on the damp, dead grass. This place was deserted. He couldn't tell if this was supposed to be a field or a floor. Half of it were uneven chunks of stone; the other half was a thick layer of yellowing grass. From the look of it, it must have been decades since anyone stayed here, but there was enough space for a town to live here. The grassy land ran in a strip between the walls and the castle — probably for defence, or something — and in front of them they saw the castle, some feet higher again than the walls.

"Yeah, and you didn't catch it in time, either."

"Quiet."

One behind the other, they skirted the inner walls as quickly as they could, looking for a way in.

…

God damn, it was dark out now. Daisya was just thankful his eyes were so used to it. Innocence liked dark places, and sometimes made its own. That was why it was always good to pay attention to how things looked the first time you went 'round them. Like that one time, back in the Balkans, with the foothills and the stream.

If Kanda hadn't been close by back then, he would have been screwed six ways to Sunday.

Speaking of which.

"D'you think we should split up once we get inside?" he asked softly.

Kanda shook his head ahead of him. There were a few small openings in the walls, and windows, but nothing wide enough to step through that opened on to a floor. The windows up above might be useful, if there was no other way.

"No. If we get separated, there's a better chance one of us is going to die."

It sounded pretty harsh (as normal — this was Kanda, after all), but it wasn't that big of a deal. Daisya understood why he'd say it like that.

"Got it."

They walked softly, trying not to be too intrusive a presence. Innocence might have been technically good, but that was its own side. The exorcists were just intermediaries.

"Hey," Daisya whispered, after a few minutes more, "Have a look over here."

He pointed at the wall. Or rather, the wall behind the wall. The outer wall had broken down, revealing an inner wall, and what looked to be a staircase climbing between the two of them, up to the upper levels. It was all in shades of darkest grey on pitch black, but there was a depth to the shadows there that implied that something led off, and into the castle.

"What?"

"If you just sneak inside the wall, there's a hallway, I think. Can you see?"

Daisya pointed, and Kanda looked down his arm.

"I guess."

Daisya shook his head, and plucked the bell off his hood.

"Let's go check it out. Innocence–!"

The bell started to burn, but the flames looked as if they were more a projection of a fire than fire itself. The old man had taught him this little trick. You might not always need a bomb, he'd said. Sometimes a flashlight is better.

He vaulted over the over the pile of rock that blocked the entrance, and held the bell out in front of him. Yep, looked like there was a hallway, just a bit out of the way of the hole. Hah. You wouldn't even notice it if you looked straight on, but from this angle it was easy to see. There was the outer wall, then a kind of tower inside, with half staircase circling around, but beneath the staircase a corridor went along the length of the fortress, between the walls, disappearing into the darkness after a few feet.

Stone ground against stone overhead, but this time Daisya was ready for it.

He heard Kanda shout a warning, and he quickly tossed the bell up, hitting it with his knee to send it flying into the stone blocks. It was a simple thing to shatter them, letting pebbles rain down where he'd been standing.

From inside the castle, Daisya turned to look back.

"This place could use some fixing up," he called, "So be careful."

Warning done, he turned to examine the hallway in detail. The Bell cast a pale light on the stones, but didn't reveal much. Stone blocks that still fit together well enough on the walls, stone floor, criss-crossing roman arches overhead to hold up the ceiling. There looked like a door about ten metres on, to the right. Couldn't hurt to try.

A thud and some grumbling from behind him told him that Kanda had gotten through the carnivorous entryway. This was definitely a bit weird. Not even akuma had aim as good as this.

He looked over at Kanda, grinning.

"Looks like this isn't that great a place to stay, eh?."

Kanda nodded.

"We should get this over with. It should be at the centre of the castle, if it's like the others."

"Yeah."

Daisya looked back at the corridor, and narrowed his eyes. Hadn't there been a door somewhere along the wall?

Hey, he was probably just getting paranoid.

In tandem, the two started to run down the hallway, using a loping gait to go as fast as possible without using too much extra energy. Daisya had been trying to get things over with as fast as possible since he'd gotten stuck in that whole mess, with the apparitions of his family.

The stone blocks flashed by, interspersed with brick and wood where they'd been pillaged to reinforce doorways or other parts of the wall. In front of them, corridor turned, and turned again, then turned into a stairwell going up about one story. There was no light but the glow of the Charity Bell, and the occasional glimpse of moonlight through a window or a hole in the wall. The old man would say it gave the place ambiance. Daisya would say it just gave him the creeps.

After the stairwell, it opened up on one of a row of chambers — the next one along was visible through the open door between them. There were all sorts of places you could hide Innocence — in the mattresses, beneath the carpet, or in the hidden drawers of rotting dressers, to give an example.

This place was so old and so broken-down, but people had definitely lived here, once. What was left in this one was a straw mattress in the corner, an ornate wardrobe, and a foot-rest, but no chair. Probably the wardrobe and foot-rest were from longer ago - they were in pretty bad shape, and definitely had been here long enough to gather a thick layer of dust.

Without speaking, every crevice was searched and every piece of furniture turned over, or in some cases punched through. The finders hadn't been able to enter the castle, let alone find the Innocence, so a slow search was necessary.

After three or so rooms, Daisya ran into one that looked like something out of a palace.

To put aside the size and the sheer amount of furniture, this one had a window. It ran high up the wall, narrow at the top and bellying out in the middle. At the centre of the room was an old, huge rug, a four-poster bed frame with no mattress, and an old chest. Along the sides, there were all sorts of wreckage. The corner of a picture frame, some long-forgotten canvas, a huge armchair — whoever had been here had trashed the place, before time did its work.

Over it all, the pale outline of moonlight falling through the window printed a tear-drop shape on the room. The shadows cast by the iron bars across it curved over the chest. For all it was just some window, it looked like an eye.

The feeling of ice near the base of his neck made Daisya look up.

Through the window, he saw the bell tower, embedded in the outer wall.

Something felt wrong.

Then — tarnished metal curled between the panes of glass, splitting the moonlight into so many sections, as if someone had smashed it like glass.

And that was  _not_  a metaphor. The metal moved, like something alive.

The bell rang, once, twice, and solemnly.

Something  _was_ wrong with this place.

For one, there was no one to ring the bell.

The grinding sound behind Daisya told him that the bell was only the start of his problems.

He whipped around, scanning the room for any more changes. The Charity Bell followed him, swooping and shining in the dimming moonlight.

The ground beneath his feet was shifting, and the walls started to look as if they were expanding, making it impossible to reach the edge of the room.

Time to go.

Daisya doubled back, trying to outrun — he wouldn't have believed it if he'd told himself — trying to outrun the floor. To his left, the window was closing over, and ahead the ceiling was crumbling in to to block the doorway between his room and Kanda's. Not good.

"Hey, Kanda, watch out!"

Mind still racing, Daisya leapt up and used a driving kick to send the Charity Bell through the wall, running hell for leather after it. The ceiling was making more suspicious noises.

The distance had stretched to a hundred metres or so, now. He scrabbled on the dusty stone, trying to keep up with the Innocence. If…

A lump of stone fell from the ceiling, and plummeted just in front of him. He plunged through it in a cloud of shards.

If something fell, his Innocence could break through it just fine.

There were only a few metres left, and Daisya was running faster than the building was moving. He'd been though way tougher things than this, but this was the first time that he'd ever have to contemplate  _that_  line of thinking.

A fraction of a second later, Daisya skidded to a halt in Kanda's room.

"Change of plan," he panted, "I found the Innocence."

Between them, the floor cracked open.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm afraid I have to say that Kanda is, for better or for worse, the deuteragonist of this series. Marie and Lenalee are characters that are actually more compelling to me than Kanda, but they and Tiedoll seem like they would get along quite well with Daisya from the start. Kanda, on the other hand, is a challenge. I'll try to write about the others more in the future, though! And thank you all so much for your eloquent comments. Hopefully over the summer, I can get this back on to a more regular schedule!
> 
> Artistic liberties have been taken with architecture and physics. Please excuse them by means of the 'it's all magic and this guy fights with a soccer ball' handwave.

Kanda reacted with the speed of a snake, leaping to throw Daisya forward. He knew he could take the landing however far down; a bad angle for a  _real_  human, on the other hand, could crush bones and snap necks. He knew this, very well.

Real people broke easily.

When the dust settled, Daisya was hanging off the wall about fifteen feet up from where Kanda was standing, trying to survey the ground without taking either of his hands off of the crack between stones. How he'd managed to get a grip was another question — all Kanda had been hoping to accomplish was a landing on a flat surface — but now his fingers were starting to slide. At least the chalky dust would keep him there for a minute more.

A quick look around told him the hallways underneath the room were just another part of the maze they'd come through. Each one led off sharply into shadows, where the piles of debris dropped off. It was only about 3 square metres of the floor that had fallen through, so the high-reaching walls sealed them off above and directly to the side.

"All clear down there?" Daisya called, voice echoing shrilly, "I don't wanna break my ankle today, if it's all the same to you."

Ungrateful brat. Still, the ground was uneven under him, so he had a point.

"Hang on for a minute. Drop when I say so."

His muscles tense for a moment when Daisya's hand slipped, but he quickly adjusted his grip.

"That doesn't sound good."

Something pressed on his mind like a weight, at the sound of his voice, the sight of dust and darkness. Something from  _before_  — or not. He was tired. It was getting to him.

"Shut up and  _wait_  for five seconds, will you."

Kanda bounded lightly over the fallen stones, and stopped beneath Daisya, trying to find a spot to brace himself. A rolled ankle was nothing, but it was still best to make sure.

"I mean, I can't really see down and my fingers are seriously slipping—"

"Now."

Daisya was heavier, and bonier than the last time they'd done this.

…

The corridor suddenly turned right, but Kanda changed direction easily. Daisya did so with rather less grace.

"So, let me get this straight," Kanda called, not looking back, "The Innocence is in the bell, and it's causing this place to  _move_?"

"Hey, you've seen it. What else could it be?"

Kanda scoffed, breath even despite the pace he took.

"How should I know?" Daisya shot back, "We're still alive, so it's probably not a Noah."

"Probably."

The two raced forward, trying to anticipate the next curve that would spring up out of the darkness, or staircase that suddenly reached up only to end in thin air. The shadows and grey stone layered on top of one another, so that judging any distance was impossible. Daisya had to admit, this was sort of fun. It was just that after a half hour of this, he knew he'd start to slow to a crawl. They needed to get out in the open, and quickly, before the Innocence trapped them.

"See?" Daisya yelled, overtaking Kanda on a downward stair, "It's trying to cut us off, like back in Croatia, or wherever that was. You know, with the river valley."

They hit the flagstones running, and were quickly driven up again.

"Who cares what it is?"

He specifically looked back to throw a glare at Kanda.

" _You_  did, thirty seconds ago—"

The stair dropped into nothing. Just as he Kanda lashed out, and grabbed Daisya's hand the moment before he went over in a cloud of dust.

A few rocks, kicked up by their boots, took some time before they hit the ground.

"Watch where you're going," he said quietly. "I'll be in front, from now on."

Out of breath and embarrassed, Daisya nodded in agreement.

"Good."

They jumped, rolled, and Kanda pulled him forward into the black.

…

At last, the corridor ran up a stair, and opened on to the great hall of the abbey, moonlit and silver.

It was a soaring construction, strewn with the wreckage of a crumbling castle. The stones, true to form, had piled up just high enough to block any clear path through the maze's centre. Gothic windows rose up the sides of the construction like ribs or even teeth, all with the same eye-like shape as the first, written out in iron filigree.

Daisya had some suspicions about that.

If it weren't for the fact that this place was trying to kill them, it would have been beautiful. The walls were carved with columns, and the thin light falling through the moving glass formed mosaics on the ground.

A few breaths were enough to clear his vision, and scan the room for exits or openings. The roof was half-collapsed, but apart from the stars above there was no way out that he could see. Just up, or back into the maze. The General probably would have stopped to paint this, sentimental that he was, but he'd had seen too much to care about stars right now.

After a moment, he decided. If Kanda hadn't already taken the time to grumble his opinion, it was up to him to choose.

"I think," he started, weighing the possibility that this could all go horribly, horribly wrong (there was about a 30% chance), "We can get there if we take the stairs where we got in. You know?"

He met Kanda's eyes, soft for a moment in the darkness. They'd had a few close calls, but this hit them in a weak spot. Marie was the one for riddles and clues, but more and more as they grew older, he wasn't there like he'd been before, in Hungary first and on so many missions since then.

They just had to take care of themselves, now.

"Yeah," murmured Kanda, finally nodded, "Follow me."

They set off at a run, keeping up a guard. Some seconds later, a cloud of shrapnel fell over them when the Charity Bell swooped overhead, detonating another piece of debris. It was times like this where long-range weapons really showed their stuff, Daisya had learned.

He followed Kanda, leaping over the stones at a speed just below his limit, and weaving around the ones that shifted or sprung up. It wasn't that much like a maze, actually. This  _moved_. Like something out of the nightmares, where no matter how fast you ran, your feet stuck to the floor like glue, and the

Now, ugh, anyone could see the difference between them. Kanda was light-footed, eating up the distance despite the few inches still between them. He seemed to have no weight, pack or not. The fact that he touched the ground after he jumped seemed to be just a bit of courtesy to the normal people (read: Daisya) around him. It was a good thing Kanda was such a bastard, 'cos otherwise Daisya wouldn't be sure if he was even human. Slim yet incredibly strong, harsh and quiet, something more out of the fairy stories than anything real; some shining knight standing on the threshold to another world.

His foot caught on a piece of stone, throwing off his balance to the point where he nearly fell. Damn. He'd been distracted.

Ahead of him, Kanda had reached the opposite wall, and wrenched open a door, turning to face him.

"Come on!"

He put on a final burst of speed, and skidded through the opening, before anything could block the way, and almost doubled over. Kanda followed, slamming the door shut behind.

"Man," Daisya wheezed, "Why do we always get these missions?"

"Because they want to get rid of you," said Kanda plainly.

"Hah, so you're enjoying yourself."

Daisya caught his breath, and straightened up.

"Anyway," he continued, "I don't think it moves much if there aren't any windows. I think it uses them like eyes, which is why they look so weird."

"It moved when we were in the dark."

"Yeah, but it wasn't specific. It was just trying to mess with us."

Kanda examined the walls warily.

"Let's just get this over with."

He started walking, and Daisya skipped into place beside him. The silence that had settled over them was one of the more uncomfortable ones. Somehow, it felt like something was going to go wrong. More wrong than it already had, anyway.

"Say," he said simply, "We've got nothing else to do, so how about a game of 'who's Alma'?"

It was always worth a try, to get it over with. What had started as a truce between Kanda's motivations and Daisya's stupid habits was now just another thing to pass the time.

"Calico Cat is better."

"But you got to choose last time!"

" _Fine_."

About twenty seconds passed before Daisya had his first guess ready.

"I'm gonna say he was about the same age as Lenalee's brother."

…

Kanda's face had settled into a sullen grimace. Daisya had made it a bit of a tradition to describe what he thought Alma was, and no amount of half-hearted 'shut up' could stop him. The first few times, Kanda had fought the urge to cut his tongue off.

But after a while, it was almost fun. The different versions Daisya came up with were just people who had the same name, and not  _him_  himself. It dulled the pain.

"…green eyes, I think, and blond hair. About 5'8"."

"Wrong."

Daisya was never going to know. The boy who even now was kicking pebbles down the hallway to pass the time, when he should have been lying somewhere in the dark with a broken leg and no chance of rescue, couldn't be allowed to know. Kanda had determined this to be a fact.

"Girl, then. You're lying about it being a he, I think. She's about the same height Helle was. I think 5'5"? Red hair."

It wasn't that he'd treat it as a joke. If that was true, Kanda would have given up ages ago. No. It was the opposite.

"No."

He was never going to know who Alma was.

"Blue eyes," announced Daisya, breaking the silence, "Liked to play card games. Smiley kind of kid."

"You know what I'm going to say."

"So that's wrong, then."

He had to grin. "Yeah."

There were a lot of things he was never going to know.

…

Daisya trailed off after a minute, and in silence the pair followed the corridor along and up, as it turned into a series of staircases. The blackened walls seemed to absorb all sound but the chalky noise of boots on stone, and the occasional gasp for air.

By the time the stairs opened at the top of a tower, Daisya was far too tired to speak. The night had worn on longer than either of them had wanted, grinding his mind into the dust.

From here, you could see the whole of the complex. The tower they were on had the typical alternating pattern of stones, giving slots for crossbows as well as more open gaps, with higher stacks of blocks to hide behind. In short, your average defense turret from the Dark Ages.

The view of the castle afforded by the turret was a bit less than average.

But for a single stone hallway cutting across the grounds, this half of the castle wasn't even standing; the wall of the castle and the outer wall of the church-like hall were the only other pieces intact. Stones and half-broken walls stacked up, sometimes low to the ground and sometimes metres above it. If M.C. Escher had laid eyes upon the structure, he would have been amazed to find a building he could copy perfectly.

Beyond the other side of the wreckage, the bell tower stood tall, embedded in the wall. Leading to it was a single staircase, one side attached to the wall, the other stepping off into empty space. It climbed down from the turret, and ran parallel to the ground in uneven stretches, before stepping up and up, with roughly five sets of steps and landings, one on the inside of the wall's corner, before reaching the tower. The stairs looked barely navigable. Parts of them would likely collapse with the tiniest amount of weight, so it would be safest to cling to the wall on the right side. Magic held this place together, but even then there were places where a stub of rock was the closest thing to a step for a few feet.

"I'll go first," said Kanda, having come to the same conclusion as Daisya, "We need to get there quickly."

"No arguments here."

Smoothly, the two walked on to the stairs. Running wasn't worth the risk. Here and there, the outer stone crumbled, and the staircase clung all the more perilously to the side.

Despite all of that, there was a strange comfort in it. Moving shadows and glassed-in eyes were one thing, but exorcists were no stranger to the nighttime, and these two were no strangers to each other. Their feet fell in stride, so light they seemed to glide up, though they were quick to gain a hold on the edge of the wall when the ground fell out from under them.

Daisya followed Kanda, now leaping over a missing stretch of about a metre as the staircase reached its midpoint along the wall. A brief glance over the scene showed him a blackened vista greater than he'd been able to see before. There was a sheer drop of at least twelve metres from here, on to stone or muddy grass. Any fall from this height would end badly; that knowledge slowed his steps and sharpened his senses. He'd need to put his mind to it to get out of this intact, as on most missions. Kanda, on the other hand, went ahead with the self-assured grace of a cat.

The staircase dropped down again.

…

Some information about the next setting is important. The staircase was climbing now, with a landing for every six or so feet of ascentsion. The bell tower was straight ahead, then around the inside corner, to the left as it skirted the inner wall. The wall the staircase was still attached to ran along their right. A more ruined barrier, still standing, blocked part of the staircase from sight, but a window left enough of a view to assure that it was still there.

A gibbous moon rose behind the bell tower. Had Daisya cared to notice, it was in conjunct with Mercury.

Kanda had started to pick up the pace, more sure of the ground beneath him. He followed the stairs over a rabbit's warren of rubble and roofless rooms, not glancing down but staring ever forward.

His path hit the wall, and he turned with it, Daisya on his heels.

The wall was solid, but some feet above, part of a leftover landing jutted out. Neither of them noticed it.

Neither of them noticed the thin trail of dust leaking down, following them.

Beside them, the window opened a fraction, as if breathing, an iron mesh swirling across its surface. Just as they settled, the bell tolled like thunder, without any hands to ring it.

_Once…_

Daisya saw the movement, and heard the ringing of the bell. Kanda was still walking, just ahead of him. The stone above and below had started to give out more easily.

In a split second, Daisya recognized many things.

Five feet of staircase was missing ahead, having fallen away from the wall. The opening was easy to jump; Daisya would need a head start, but Kanda could easily do it from standing.

The wall beside it was full of chinks, large enough to fit a hand or a sword.

Kanda halted near the edge, looking ahead to the tower.

Above his head, something whistled through the air, disguised by the noise of the bell and by the darkness.

A handful of stones, each more than a foot square. Enough to hurt. Enough to crush a head or a ribcage or both in a fraction of a second.

_Twice…_

There were no akuma, not here, not now.

Only one living exorcist was needed to obtain the Innocence.

The last thing Kanda felt before he fell was a hand, planted in his back and pushing him forward, into the gap.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is just a short little installment, to try and fill in the gaps of what happened, which isn't entirely clear. Hopefully it'll be straightened out next chapter, but for now...

It — the Innocence that was their objective — was close enough for Kanda to taste.

Every minute more they spent here was too much, with just the two of them. They'd been sent out for reconnaissance and extermination, not to try and figure out whatever the hell was going on here. Figuring out the Innocence was for scholars. They were here to kill. It was all they were good for.

No, it was all he was good for. Daisya was long-range, and clever; he'd been the one to think about this place, try to figure out what was going on, noticing when and where the walls moved, hearing everything that Kanda never bothered to listen to. To think that the boy who'd never bothered to  _pay attention_ to where Kanda was hiding something, or when the akuma were right in front of him and bearing down, would end up with a brain that sparked like flint if only you just scraped it against something.

He could have a future, if he just reached out and took it.

A slight movement in the stone beneath him made him jump, brushing a hand against the wall, as a section started to crumble. There was a gap ahead that would need a leap, but it was far enough ahead to ignore right now.

Why didn't Daisya  _see_ it? He faced off with Lenalee for training, and even when she didn't hold back he sometimes matched her mind for mind. A fucking genius! It was bad enough that she couldn't see how strong she was sometimes, but Daisya didn't have a clue. Never thought about what it took to reach out a hand, or track down a source, or make the air seem lighter, easier to breathe. He'd just kept rushing back into the same situations, over and over again, and Kanda (or Marie, or Lenalee) had to keep saving the useless bastard, over and over again. Even since they'd — since he'd agreed to stop it, he still pushed on. Not as much, but in different ways. Wasting an exorcist that the Order couldn't spare.

And still he kept guessing. Closer and closer, changing the hair colour and the height and creeping too damn close to who Alma was. Until today.

Now, by chance or by design, he knew.

Kanda wasn't sure how serious he was, how much digging he'd been doing, how long they were both prepared to let this game play out, but if Daisya really meant what he'd said…

They could only hope he'd stopped being so  _stupid_. That he'd learned not to throw his life away to take down one akuma, or find one piece of Innocence.

The kid with ragged hair, curved tattoos, a stocky build, and a broad smile had haunted him for as long as this body had been alive. But which one?

Which one was it?

A sharp  _clang_ shook him out of the train of thought that had circled him for years, and sharpened his attention towards the front.  _The tower_ —

Kanda heard only the tolling of the bell, and saw it silhouetted against the moon. He didn't hear, beneath the ringing, the grating of stone on stone, or a gasp behind him.

…

The next few seconds had passed either very quickly or very slowly. Darkness, thunder, pushing, breathless. The rush of air behind him as something dropped, within a few inches of him.

He was falling. Again. Someone had pushed him and he  _couldn't do anything again—_

For a moment, he was running from the Asian Branch. No. No, he couldn't be. That was 'd escaped. Run, Yuu  _—_ _NO!_

Reflexes kicked in, jolting him back to the present in time to whip out Mugen, and plunge it sideways into mouldering stone. Steeled by magic, it dug into the wall, and slowed him down.

Something fell past him. Someone. Something and someone. And blood.

Lots of blood.

…

Daisya woke up to water trickling down the side of his neck.

The tree above him gave some protection from the rain, but leaves were as good as funnels in a downpour, he noticed, before a wave of pain hit him, and hit him  _hard_.

He froze, wincing and trying to remember what the hell he'd done this time. Nothing.

Just as well. Oh, god it  _hurt_ …

Note by note, a melody filtered through the haze. Nothing special, just a little ditty to keep pace or pass the time. The singer's voice had a child-like quality to it. The singer's words did not.

He cleared his mind, trying to steady his breathing. Doing something stupid right now would get him a scolding from Marie and the old man at best, and at worst would get him an express ticket to see Isaac and Antonina and the others. Human, akuma, or whatever else this singer was, it wasn't going to be friendly to exorcists.

His breath was surprisingly easy to dampen. It almost like he wasn't breathing at all. Maybe Kanda's meditation practice had paid off, at last.

Footsteps approached, sinking in the muck, and a curious figure stopped across from him. Somehow, it felt like he was looking up and down at her at the same time. Weird.

"What happened to this one, I wonder?"

She crouched down, looking at him with the delicate pity of a butterfly collector, ready with the pin.

"Don't know, lero."

The second voice seemed to some from her side, though no other speaker was present.

"Hmm. Do you think he's really dead?"

"Probably, lero," the voice quavered, "Lady Road, it's just a human, and I think the Earl would like it if you got back soon–"

A quick gesture, followed by a whoosh and a shriek, silenced the voice as the stick-like figure stood bolt upright.

"Yeah, yeah," she sighed.

It was a girl that was standing there, no more than twelve years old, and swinging around a gaudy umbrella. She had turned to walk away.

As if to make sure, she looked back once, and Daisya's eyes finally cleared enough to see her face. On her forehead sat a crown-shaped scar.

Seeing nothing in his body, she looked up, into his eyes. For a moment, he could have sworn she saw him watching.

Then she turned back, and walked away.

Another sensation of agony hit, clouding his mind. God, not now,  _no—_

A strangled noise escaped him, once she'd disappeared from view. Now, the pain was unbearable. He couldn't believe he hadn't been able to feel the scratch of bark and even the dull burning of his eyelids.

And the taste of the blood that coated his mouth, and spilled down his lips.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [bad author voice] hur hur hur, you see, Road turns up, because it's called THE ROAD and she turns up in all of them, geddit? geddit?
> 
> Actually, I was planning to have her show up in the first one anyway, but I couldn't resist not adding her to the others, even for just like 2 lines because she's great. The reason will probably be revealed at some point in time?


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What's happening, you ask? Do I look like I know? Nope

All told, they were out of there in two days. It took that long for Kanda to clean the akuma from the area. They would be back. Daisya's leg was wrapped up with a splint, and he used crutches when he could. He always carried an emergency stash of medicine around, since the first time he'd been really banged up; now, he needed them.

Between a string of carts, coaches, crutches, and in a couple of places Kanda, they escaped with their bodies mostly intact.

…

This stretch was another of the painful ones. Daisya could hobble along on crutches well enough, but when the ground was almost mud and the ruts ran deep, those weren't enough. Sometimes Kanda could act as a human crutch, but on bad roads like this one he had to carry Daisya like a backpack. They couldn't afford to wait for him to heal, not if they wanted to get back to the order before any damage became permanent.

Since they set off from that abandoned cabin, there had been no comfort. In any other place, at any other time, Daisya would keep a pretty good conversation going by himself, and Kanda would sometimes contribute a retort or even a full sentence. The lapsed silences would then be a blanket, made up of the knowledge that there was nothing much to say, and nothing that needed to be said. The golden quiet would wrap around Daisya, slithering between his fingers and curling in his chest. It was so full of  _normality_ , and yet it was so far from boring.

These ones — the silences since the castle — were bitter and tired, made up of the fragmented beginnings of sentences and stone blocks of slit-eyed glares. Misery, that was the word. Misery — thin, iron grey, and watery — dripped off of it, like the rain off the trees and Daisya's hood.

The medicine took the edge off the pain, but not off the sheer sandpaper roughness of Kanda. There wasn't a good reason but still. Still. Things had been so  _good_  for months. Kanda, even though the rest of them were dropping like flies, was just himself.

And the others didn't even matter so much — you dropped a card at the plaque on their birthdays, you remembered what they did, but never who they were. There was a way to do that. A word, repeated often enough, loses its meaning. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac. Isaac.

Had enough? Yeah. Now it just looks like a mutation of the alphabet, with too many A's. Not the kid who got Helle to teach him how to braid hair so that he could do his sister's.

You had to do it. You didn't want to know how your own name could end up meaning nothing.

Daisya tried to concentrate on his own breath, caught in his suddenly swollen throat. He could feel Kanda's too, so much more measured and more quiet.

He wasn't complaining. Contemplative, sleepy, and calm were the words that came to mind when Daisya examined him. Even his footsteps were light.

Obviously, someone had to fill in for his usual role.

'Cos Kanda was just acting like a kid throwing a temper tantrum, but in the opposite direction. Even his brothers had been more cunning about this, and they thought that drawing moustaches on pictures was the cleverest joke in the book. Come  _on_.

Yeah, the moustaches were pretty funny, but that was beside the point!

Kanda and his hero complex were hilarious at first, but they got pretty tired and annoying pretty damned quickly. Sure, he'd taken a massive risk, but he knew that, and didn't care. He was just having fun. Everything else that happened was bad luck, a price to pay. They knew the deal. He'd even tried to stay alive. Hear that? He'd tried! Daisya Barry had tried! Kanda seemed to think of him as the Order's machine, but at times like this he didn't act like it.

Daisya felt his fingers tighten, the words piling up indignantly behind his teeth.

He'd seen how Kanda looked every time one of the exorcists died. Even if it was for a second here and there, there was always the same look of mute horror. For a moment, he just seemed to shut down.

Dying was fairly final. It was  _it_. You never came back. Even if you continued to exist, knotted up behind gunmetal, there was no guarantee that it was the best option.

Kanda hated dying. That was old news. It was getting tired.

There was another, more important question.

"Hey, Kanda."

Silence followed the bitter words, their consonants chipped from rock.

"Alma's pretty short. He's got dark hair, wide eyes, and I'm still guessing he was your friend."

Silence.

The looks were a shot in the dark, as always, but those were only trimmings.

More silence.

"Hey, Kanda, I don't think I caught that."

Daisya didn't bother trying to hide the irony in his voice. People were afraid of Kanda, and he used to be one of them, but he was fed up with playing by someone else's rules. Even for Kanda.

"Shut up."

Warning number one.

"Come on, that's not what you said. So am I wrong or right?"

" _Shut up_."

Warning number two.

"You know what? I think I'm right. I've known you long enough to know–"

The support under Daisya's legs dropped, and he fell, catching himself on his forearms before the force of the fall got to his legs. Kanda hadn't bothered with the traditional count of three.

And now his clothes were all muddy. That sucked. They'd been muddy for days. It was getting boring, just like the rain, after a while. And Kanda.

Daisya decided to leave the crutches folded up in his backpack, and pulled himself up to sitting. He planted an arm behind him, and let himself shift back. One leg bent up, taking most of the weight, and the broken one lay outstretched.

"Hey, Kanda, you gonna help me up?"

Kanda threw him a glare. "Help yourself up."

The raindrops, fat and lukewarm, made dimples in the dirt around Daisya's fingers.

"So I was right."

Kanda wasn't walking at least, but standing to the side of the road, looking back.

"You know, you're acting like a little kid."

The gaze that met him was impassive. Kanda knew he had the high ground, and was in no hurry to give Daisya the advantage.

"You're just getting mad over something stupid. I've got siblings, I know what it looks like."

Daisya had already catalogued the trees around here to the best of his spotty knowledge, but a tree caught his eye that looked a bit like a hemlock. Amazing, what you notice when you've got more important things to think about.

"So just help me up and quit whining. It's getting boring."

Kanda seemed to have lost his patience, because now he was moving. The look he had plastered on was enough to make even the most terminally cheerful keep their distance. Daisya wasn't one of them. He wasn't about to lose this argument, not with two years of waiting.

Though it was still day, the clouds were thick and bruised, blocking off the sunlight and staining the earth dark with water. With the sun hidden behind the trees, it seemed almost as dark as dusk.

The pair of boots — his ankles were so skinny that he still had to wear the kids' ones, Daisya noted — came to a halt about a foot away, leaving Daisya looking up into raindrops and narrowed eyes.

With the shadow cast by what light remained, you got the impression that instead of an exorcist, fury incarnate had stopped by for a bit of a lecture.

"You were dead."

The words didn't just describe what had happened. They set it into place, as if carved into a headstone.

The spectre pointed at him with two fingers, leveled like a knife. Stretching up the wide sleeve of his coat, a long scar suddenly caught Daisya's eye.  _That was new_.

"Don't try to tell me what happened."

The words were spat, and Daisya couldn't help feeling his breath speed up, looking up into the thing's eyes.

_Enough._

Kanda liked to play this little game. Dance around and blame him whenever something went wrong, when Daisya had made a mistake, and he'd had enough. He'd been willing to take the consequences. Why did Kanda always have to be the saviour? All the times he'd played ball with him, partnered up for studying, hid a smirk at those terrible, terrible jokes — it went down the drain the moment things got serious. Then he was cold as hell and hard as stone and Daisya was so damn  _sick_  of it—

He lashed out, grabbing Kanda's outstretched arm and pulling him off balance, down to his knees. With the other hand clutching Kanda's coat, Daisya pulled him so close that he could see the bloodshot whites of his eyes. Kanda looked shaken, desperate. Just like he felt.

"What the  _hell—_ "

"Just admit it!" Daisya yelled, cutting him off, "Tell me what you did!"

"Let go of me." Kanda's voice was still set in a low growl.

"No. Just tell me. You got in trouble, I got you out, got myself into more trouble, you saved me! How god damned hard is it to say?"

"Shut up."

Daisya pulled the sleeve down, revealing the mark on the inside Kanda's forearm.

"You cut deep enough to be bleeding all over the place. Trust me, I know what it looks like. Just tell me what that was about. It doesn't make sense."

Kanda didn't answer, still breathing heavily.

"You know? You did this shit back in Budapest, in the forest — you're always like this every time it happens."

"Yeah, because every time you always do the same fucking thing!"

Daisya leaned up, covering the last few inches between them. He could feel Kanda's stray breath on his lips.

"So what, huh?"

"So you're fucking stupid It's my blood. That's what heals me up, what I just wasted on you."

"So why d'you even try to save me? It's not like it doesn't cost you anything."

Kanda's face twisted. "Fuck you. Fuck Marie."

He should probably mention later that it was the old man who'd told him about the cost of Kanda's healing, and not Marie, but he was too pissed off to correct Kanda now.

"Tell me why, or stop fucking pulling these stunts and expecting me to understand why you're upset!"

"Says you—"

Daisya felt himself tense in desperation, muscles coiling like an animal about to fight or run the hell away. He was wrong; so, so wrong, but there wasn't any other explanation and he was so weak.

"Just admit it."

Daisya cut himself off. His voice had evaporated, leaving only a whisper, and he'd already gone too far. Almost.

"Tell me you love me or hate me or  _something—_ "

Kanda was silent. Daisya let go.

"You suck at talking," he finished unceremoniously, "Lenalee says."

He was expecting Kanda to pull away, avoid eye contact, say nothing. Instead, he felt an iron vice around his arm.

"You want me to tell you why?"

The voice was level.

"If you'd been travelling with anyone else, you'd be dead."

Kanda looked like he expected it to be an ultimatum. Shut up, be grateful for your life, and stop prying. But Daisya was one step ahead of him, for once.

"No."

"What _._ "

He smiled, still trying to guess whether he'd been right about why Kanda always had to save him. He was so  _close_  to the answer that would let him go, free of all Kanda's stupid bullshit.

Alma.

"I mean, you're wrong." He'd meant for the words to be an arrogant declaration, but instead they came out wet and choked. "If I'd been travelling with anyone else, they'd be dead. Well, no, Lena and Marie still count, but the rest of them — I'd be alive. They'd be six feet under a pile of rock."

For a moment something in Daisya's line of vision gleamed. Everything was too real. His breath hung hot and heavy in his lungs, and he trembled. He could feel his heart hammering at his bones, as if something was trying to rip its way out of his chest. He was so close. To Alma. To Kanda.

Even now, when he was barrelling over the edge of the cliff, telling him everything and trying to get him to talk, he'd wanted to tear Kanda apart. Take out all the hurt, and put him back together without the thing that gnawed at his insides and kept his mouth glued shut. This wasn't the feeling he'd read about. Not anger.

He couldn't remember when it started, only that this was the closest he'd come to admitting it. Kanda wasn't the only one who couldn't deal with a problem.

For one moment longer, Kanda held his gaze, then knelt down beside him.

"If you do it again, I won't save you."

Daisya almost reached out, almost asked him all the questions he  _almost_  had the answers to. So close.

Instead, he let Kanda pick him up carrying him the rest of the way.

Kanda's movements were almost gentle.

…

Kanda could heal himself. His wounds barely lasted for a few hours. There was nothing saying that his blood wasn't enough to heal others.

The mysterious girl had thought he was dead. The blood everywhere and the pain he had felt hadn't stopped him from looking at her.

And how had he managed to survive what would have killed Kanda?

Sprawled out on the ground, the pieces of the puzzle had slid into place for Daisya just moments before Kanda had told him how it worked.

"Alma" was just another word for "death." And — maybe, just maybe — another word for "friend."

Daisya felt his consciousness slipping away as he considered the answer that was almost right.

All these almosts were getting boring.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This arc is just full of upset yelling. Jsyk
> 
> I had to go back and reread a bit of the old stuff to remember exactly what I've written, and was funny to see how my writing style's grown up with Daisya. It's been 2 years in real and story time, so if that keeps up this will finally be finished in 2022!

Kanda carried him through the night, his short steps never flagging. They needed to get on to the main corridor that ran between Bratislava and Vienna, and soon. From there they could catch a train that would return them to the Order's doctors in time, or at least to some kind of help that wouldn't ask awkward questions about the state they were in. Kanda hadn't had time to think when he tried to heal Daisya, so in places the skin and bones knit together in ways that just looked wrong. If they waited too long, the damn leg would have to be broken and reset.

So they trudged along ankle-twisting wet roads, soaked through and bone tired. In between snatches of sleep, Daisya gave up wondering how much it hurt Kanda, even with all that whacked-out magic he had.

…

Daisya woke up in an unfamiliar bed, in a room he did not remember, with a dull ache in his leg that was a heck of a lot more recognizable. Not really pain, but a kind of itchy off-ness to it that crawled up his body. The leg, the room, even his eyes seemed like they were a mile away from his head. After a few shallow breaths and today's first dose, his senses finally kicked into gear, and waited, observing, while the body got itself in order.

It was brighter out than yesterday, but the light was still a thin blanket over the room, bleeding both the colour and the contrast out of it. Even the window opened on an off-white sky that made your eyeballs ache. That meant...they were on the first floor up? Second floor? He didn't remember this town, either, so it was hard to tell where the room was. Probably the second floor. Not much else was there, just the window that was under the ceiling in the corner to his left. And underneath that, sitting on his own bed and staring impassively, was a sideways Kanda. He supposed he'd have to sit up at some point, but for now it was  _so_ much easier just to let his head fall all the way to the side.

Like the parts of a puzzle box, Daisya's mind slowly put together something to say. It was...not night. Probably morning.

"Oh, hey," he slurred, "G'mornin'"

Good enough. He'd said something, even when the rest of him felt like it was made of lead. The components of the box moved again, a scrap of memory sliding into place and unlocking another piece, which moved to join the rapidly-forming mosaic of the Life of Daisya Barry These Past Twelve Hours. Mostly it was rain, and complaining, and complaining about the rain, but then…

…oh, boy. Trying to pick a fight with Kanda.  _Picking_ a fight with Kanda. What a move. He'd try to remember the details of whole thing later: exactly how he'd been right about Alma, how he'd known to guess it, how Kanda had finally caved in and admitted about the whole healing thing, but for now he was just going to steer clear of all that.

"Uh," he started again, keeping his vowels from sliding around this time, "What's going on, again?"

"It's past four. We'll change the splint, and then we're leaving as soon as you can eat something without spewing all over the floor." Kanda hadn't moved, so he was probably waiting for an intelligent response. Well, intelligent by Daisya's standards.

Wait…no, no, that wasn't right. Daisya'd always been the smart one, between the two of them. After all, who did better in German? Who'd come up with that really cool move he and Marie did back in Hungary? It wasn't  _his_ fault if he couldn't live up to Kanda's faulty logic.

But he did feel a bit scatterbrained.

_Anyway._

Four o'clock. It wouldn't be this light out in the morning, so it was the afternoon. Go figure. He must have been asleep when they arrived, and gone straight through the day. His travelling clothes had been changed for the spare nightshirt, but everything was soaked, so a new set of bandages wouldn't hurt. No objection there. But food…his stomach was in the habit of turning these days, and this was going to be way worse. The dry ration biscuits would have to wait for later. Last but not least, he was in no fit shape for walking. True, the constant doses of medicine kept the pain down, but after yesterday the roads would be too slick to chance with a half-broken leg.

"I'm not—"

"I'll carry you. You can sleep on the train, when we get to it." Kanda had slumped into a pretzel-like position, one leg bent up into a triangle with a hand stuck under it, grasping the other.

But, no, you can't sleep on the train with all that bouncing and rattling and all. He was dizzy in a regular old bed, so imagine what a train would be like.

"You were snoring on the way here, dumbass."

Daisya paused for a moment, and squinted until the light stopped dancing in front of his eyes.

"I said that out loud, didn't I?"

He sighed after a moment at the lack of response, and slowly, inch by inch, sat up. He looked back at Kanda, who was still a bit out of focus even right side up. God damn. A spinning head could be chalked up to lack of sleep, so he supposed he wasn't completely infirm.

"You going to eat now, or later?" asked Kanda, now walking over to him.

"Probably now. I'll just stare at it for an hour, and then I'll feel really sick, and maybe I'll throw up, and then I'll eat it."

"You're disgusting."

…

Kanda said nothing as he worked, undoing the more temporary splint piece by piece and improvising something closer to a cast. Keeping the leg still and in a natural-looking position was the most important part.

This was part of what they learned in the field, practicing on Finders and Exorcists, and even civvies. Kanda wasn't the best and wasn't close to it, but his hands were steady while cleaning wounds and binding them. This one must be nasty. Though Daisya had to crane his neck, he could see that the skin was healed over in some places and raw in others, revealing the mess that ran underneath.

"Stop moving."

It was barely a murmur, but Daisya laid back down.

"I kind of got the gist last night, but how bad is it?"

Kanda's hands slowed for a moment, holding in place as he got a pair of tweezers out of the oilcloth kit beside him.

"I've seen worse."

"Yeah, on me."

Daisya couldn't help adding it on, remembering how often Kanda had complained about his supposed injuries.

"Yeah."

The seconds blended into one another, as Daisya ran his eyes over the ceiling, and thought. Of a little seaside town in Turkey. Of the first time he saw the akuma, the first time he was really afraid, and when the old man destroyed them. Of when it felt like what he'd wanted so badly was finally his. Of the year when it was just him and the old man, learning language and healing and how to  _kill_  the akuma. And then, his first mission with Kanda and Marie, and the years since then. Of getting burnt up, trapped, and crushed, to the point where even that weird girl gave him up for dead, all for the sake of…what? For the sake of someone else? Or for the sake of becoming a hero?

All he'd ever wanted to be was extraordinary.

Not much. There were so many ordinary people out there that he  _had_ to be unique, just to notice how boring it was. He had to be, otherwise what was the point? Growing up, minding the kids, becoming the shopkeeper, being forced to marry some girl he'd grown up with who didn't want to marry him, having a bunch of  _brats_ just like his siblings — God, it was disgusting. He'd wanted to be extraordinary, and he had been. Saviour and destroyer. Special.

Except that he wasn't. Not a saviour, even though he'd saved, not a destroyer, even though he'd done that too. Kanda just couldn't let him have even this without getting in the way, saving him like some kid in the riptide and cussing him out, even though he'd  _known_ what he was doing. Probably.

His head spun, the pain crept through the medicine, and he slipped up time after time, just barely getting out. This mission was the knife's edge between a risk and a mistake. He'd felt  _fear_ watching Kanda forge forward in the darkness. Too many times, in flames and flood, he'd been afraid for that hardassed brat.

More than that, he'd been afraid for himself.

It was probably the fatigue, or time to take another dose, but he was glad Kanda kept his head down.

…

Daisya forced down the last of the meal, and swung his legs over the side of the bed, testing his weight on the good one. On the other side of the room, Kanda had spread a map out, to memorize a path.

"Don't put weight on it. You'll mess it up."

"Yeah, yeah."

He picked up the rough crutches Kanda had made, and after a few false starts was able to hobble around the room. It was hell on the shoulders of all things, but he'd felt worse. Now that he could remember yesterday's conversation, he could guess how much worse. When changing back into the uniform he'd seen the scar tissue that extended up to his ribcage, and the protrusions of bone under the skin that hadn't been there a week before.

Yesterday, for once in his life, Kanda had been crystal clear.

He had died.

A couple of rounds of the room, and Daisya was satisfied that he'd be all right for another day's walk, so long as he wasn't the one doing the walking. Speaking of which, he'd been doing some thinking.

"We takin' the same road back as coming here?"

"No. Could be akuma on the main highway."

The question had mostly been for the sake of it, but Kanda hadn't noticed. What mattered was that he got a conversation going. He needed to talk.

"Got it."

He needed to say something.

"Then we're going," stated Kanda, folding up the map.

"Say, did you get much sleep last night?"

He needed Kanda to understand how much of a bastard he was.

"Enough. You'd better grab your bag, if you don't want to walk by yourself."

"Not right now, Yuu."

It was as if he'd dropped a bomb.

"What part of  _don't call me that_ do you not understand—"

The first thing to hand to get Kanda to pay attention was always Alma, but now that he'd figured it out, it wasn't enough. So what if the person he hated so much had been his friend. So what if Alma had tried to kill him. Daisya needed to know why, and the given name was the next step on the path to discovery. It had certainly worked to make Kanda (because even though Yuu was his real name, he was still Kanda) whip around to face him, and shoot him a steel-cold glare. But it wouldn't worked this time: it hadn't worked yesterday, nor would it now. Daisya wasn't scared, though his heart beat bruises in his chest.

He just felt sorry.

"I didn't call you that until now, so shut up," he snapped. "Anyhow, there's some stuff I've got to say, before we screw anything else up."

"Before you screw anything else up."

"Nope, before  _you_  do." He hopped towards Kanda's bed, and sat down, for a better seat.

"Fucking try me."

"Oh, I know I'm not the top of the exorcist pile," Daisya said, letting the usual sardonic edge back into his voice, "But what I did? I told you, I wasn't being stupid. I knew  _exactly_ what was going to happen if I stayed still. I know that you're a better than me at this, so if it's a choice between the two of us, it has to be you. You know that, I know that, Lenalee's four-eyed nerd brother knows that.  _Don't_."

Kanda had tried to turn away, to dismiss him like he always tried to do, but Daisya's hand had lashed out to catch his wrist. Why couldn't he just listen?

"But even that doesn't matter, because like it or not, I care about you! We're friends! I don't  _want_ you to die! So I just did what was the right thing at the time, and now we're both here to tell the tale. I. Saved. You. Because I wanted to, for Christ's sake. Because I was scared to hell and back that you'd be strawberry jam on the ground and I'd be all alone. Finishing the mission, and then going back and telling them all that you—"

He took a deep breath, and went for the throat of the argument. "Not because I was being stupid. I'm still the smart one, here. You know what? I saved your sorry ass from getting burnt  _alive_. I came up with a way for Marie and I to exterminate a whole horde of akuma, I got the Innocence out of the Opera House, and I figured out how to get to the Innocence that made those illusions back there. That was me! Maybe I felt sorry for you, maybe I needed to prove myself — doesn't matter now."

It was time to gulp another cupful of air, and hold it until whatever it was inside him stopped shaking.

"Because every  _single_  time you find something to bitch about. I'm sick and fucking tired of it. Just because you've got a God damned hero complex doesn't mean that the rest of us are only there for you to save!  _I_ saved you then, because I needed to, and  _I've_ just saved you now. Not the other way around."

There was stillness for a moment.

And another.

Another.

Daisya exhaled, but didn't flinch away from the confrontation.

Then, slowly, Kanda's lips pulled back to reveal gritted teeth. With a single movement, he broke Daisya's brittle grip, and finally turned up his mouth to make the grimace into a terrifying smile.

"You get it, now," he spat, "You said you were scared. Finally, you know how I fucking feel."

He turned towards the door, and left Daisya frozen in place.

"Get your stuff, unless you want your leg to stay like that."

Kanda. Feeling. It was something he'd never really thought about before, not in terms of himself.

"Daisya."

Not like that. He knew Kanda had to save people, but for him to admit what he did and admit that he  _cared,_ not just doing a job…it wasn't a Kanda thing. He got mad, but he didn't get worried, and he didn't tell Daisya the whole story. Until now.

"Get. Moving. We don't have much time."

Daisya breathed in, and out, and in again.

"Yeah. I know."


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic (as most of you have probably guessed) isn't exactly Daisya's story, but is mostly Daisya's story with respect to Kanda, because it was Kanda not exploding at Daisya and not even getting angry with him in the anime that got me to write this thing in the first place. Lenalee, Tiedoll, and Marie - it's easy to see how their relationships with Daisya would come to be, but as for Kanda it's a complete mystery. However, this means that I've been sorely neglecting them, so I tried to sketch out parts of their relationships in side stories.
> 
> Anyhow, there will be flashbacks in this chapter - they're in no particular chronological order, so you can slot them in where they fit in the timeline.
> 
> Hope you guys can enjoy the chapter! I was reading some of the earlier stuff the other day, and [wince] even though I'm still not great, this still seems to improve

They had the cabin to themselves, sitting side by side on a bench opposite their equipment. In case of any emergency, it was better to have everything close to hand instead of stored up on the shelves that were just a bit too high for kids before their growth spurt.

"Dude, I was having a nice nap until we got into town."

It was comforting, to hear Daisya back to normal. What he'd said these past few days still followed Kanda around, no matter how many times he tried to swat it out of his head.

"Don't try to tell me you're not tired."

Daisya yawned loudly, and stretched his arms out, one sliding over Kanda's shoulders and the other stretching out the window. Backwater railway lines like these didn't have the biggest cabins or the comfiest benches. "You know me too well."

No, he didn't know him at all. "You haven't shut up about it for days."

"But this time I was complaining about it because I was actually tired, you know, not just for the sake of it."

Whether that was true or not, Kanda couldn't tell. All he knew was that Daisya needed a heavy dose of sleep, now that they were relatively safe from akuma. There'd been a ton of them just hanging around the abbey in the hours afterwards, as if someone had warned them.

"Whatever. I'll sit up and sleep; you can lie across the bench."

"Don't need to tell me twice."

He tried to remember that last time  _he'd_  properly slept. This body could take more than a human's, a lot more, but with one exorcist down and akuma swarming he'd had no choice but to stay up, catching an hour or two here and there, asking Daisya to keep a lookout when they rested at the side of the road. It had been days. The day before they went to the abbey was probably the last one.

This was no fighting state. He should have rested a while earlier: he was a light sleeper, and he could outrun the akuma. Daisya was just dead weight. Couldn't run, couldn't use his Innocence fast enough to fight, too hyped-up on pain and fatigue and those meds he took to think his way out. He could just be left there, when push came to shove. Kanda had tried pushing him away before, tried locking him out or failing that to shove him out of the way. He'd thought he'd finally forced Daisya to cope on his own when he dangled Alma's mystery in front of him in return for an ounce of fucking caution, but now he'd figured out the fucking clues he'd picked up along the way.

It was obvious that he wasn't going to make it much longer. Alone, or with Kanda's help.

It hurt.

It hurt, and Kanda knew it, but that didn't make the dull pain of it go away. If he accepted it now, that Daisya's recklessness meant that he was living on borrowed time, he would be able to accept it when it finally happened.

That's what he'd thought, until he'd felt the hand in his back and nothing below him, heard the grinding stone and sickening crunch of bones, landed hard and in a blind panic ripped the fractured slabs of rock from off the body, to see the damage underneath.

One day, he would be a few seconds too late, too tired, too slow, and Daisya would be gone, and he would either have to die with him, or live on.

He'd made that choice years ago.

It wasn't any easier.

Daisya had already curled up, head resting on Kanda's knees, when the conductor came by to check tickets. Two passes, stamped with the rose seal of the Black Order, were duly inspected and returned, and the door slid shut again. Kanda locked it for good measure.

Whether he was awake or not, Daisya's eyes were closed and his breathing was soft and sound, keyed in to Kanda's own rhythm. No one could see them, pulling off into the forest and heading toward the plains.

No one could see him.

Slowly, he passed a hand over Daisya's face, smoothing back his messy hair and tucking it behind his ear to test if he was asleep. Daisya might be able to sleep through thunderstorms and lightning, but he was jumpy.

No movement. He was out like a light.

It wasn't Kanda's room, one illusion and his cracked flagstones behind a double-bolted door, but it would do. The locked door was enough.

He braced his shoulders against the wall, crossed his arms, and leaned sideways on the door, falling into oblivion if not into sleep. And slowly, bit by bit uncoiling each muscle and nerve, he let himself relax.

And start to cry.

…

Oblivious and relishing the rest and the peaceful haze of extra pills, Daisya let his thoughts drift over to what the Order had become to him.

What he might have left behind, if not for Kanda.

…

"Daisya?" called Lenalee, her warm voice diffusing through the dusty air. "You here?"

The boy in question hurriedly shoved a pile of paper to the side, dropping a heavy book on top to hide the spidery sketches that covered the pages. If he'd been trying to look like an academic, an hour's worth of doodles on his notes wouldn't do him any favours.

"Yep! Recent East Asian history section."

He grabbed another volume from the stack in front of him, and opened it up to a random page. The library was the only place you could get any piece and quiet these days, now that akuma activity was back up from the summer and the exorcists were coming and going like anybody's business. It was a bit chilly up here, with no fire allowed near the dry paper, but he'd bundled himself into a nest of blankets big enough to keep him warm.

"Got it!"

Soft footsteps ran towards him, climbing the creaky stairs without a single misstep and taking them two or three at a time from the sound of it.

Daisya hated to admit it, but Lenalee wasn't the same nervous wreck he'd sometimes thought of; embarrassingly enough, she was good, and getting better at this whole exorcist thing. Like, seriously good. Great. Kanda-level good. Beating-him-in-one-on-one-football good, as of a week ago, for crying out loud! If he were to be honest, that was why he was  _trying_  to study now (no one said anything about succeeding) — he needed to hold his ground somehow. Well, make up ground. He could keep pace with her in strength for a few years more (never mind that she was younger than him and should by all rights be a scrawny little weakling), but she was on track to beat him in lessons.

After so much time on the road in the fall, with no one but a finder, it was nice to come back to a challenge.

"Does your four-eyed brother want to see me, or something?" he asked, seeing her come into view between the crooked shelves. "I thought I was on leave until next week."

"Nope, that's right," she confirmed, speaking still too sweetly for Daisya to hold her skills against her. "Marie just got back ahead of schedule, so I figured you'd want to know."

Daisya nearly jumped out of his seat, but his legs were too stuck tangled up in the blankets. "What?! No, did you see him?"

"Unless I'm going blind, he's catching up with Suman." She grinned at him. "Should I hold you steady, or are you going to be okay?"

"Oh shut up, man," he shot back. "I haven't seen him in, like, six months! Whenever I'm back he gets send off to the back end of nowhere."

"Oh, yeah, I guess so. Me and Kanda ran that mission a few weeks back with him down in Fez."

Lenalee kicked one of the shelves back a bit, and sat down on a lone cabinet, lost in unfamiliar territory. Probably Reever had brought it up here, to keep at least some of the files organized and safe from her brother.

"And where was I?" Daisya asked, "Getting my ass kicked with a couple of newbie finders. I still can't believe we got out of that alive."

"I'm sure it wasn't that bad."

"Uh, nuh uh. You know that time where we got stuck in that bog in White Russia, and your feet got stuck and my Innocence was full of guck? Like that. But with a couple of good-for-nothings."

He shuddered at the memory. Not that bad? Not that  _bad_? A whole  _army_ inhabited by Innocence and too belligerent to give it up? A couple of superstitious little kids? Come on.

"Daisya," she implored, frowning slightly, "Don't say that."

"It's true!"

"I meant that you shouldn't include yourself."

The grin that immediately burst out from her showed the joke, the little swine.

"Ha ha," he said flatly, throwing her a look. "I don't even know if you were joking, but very funny."

"Anyhow, if you can afford to take a break from your studies, I'm sure he'd be excited to see you again before you go."

She crossed and uncrossed her legs, looking almost as excited as Daisya to have three quarters of their group back together. The exorcists and even the finders tended to separate off into little gangs, and just with the way it all played out, the quartet of himself, Marie, Kanda, and Lenalee (sometimes with four-eyes and the old man, if he was in town) had become his new family.

Family. He hadn't thought about them in a few weeks, but it was nearly time to write the monthly letter.

"Hello? Daisya?"

Lenalee waved a hand in front of his eyes, and snatched it away when he tried to grab it. Yep, definitely family.

"Sure!" he answered, "I'll just finish this up, and then I'll follow you back down."

Carefully, he stretched, and things snapped in places he wasn't sure could cramp like that. God, the academic life was a tough one.

"You should do some exercises tonight," chirped Lenalee, "With me and the rest of Yeager's students and the new recruits. It'll get you back into shape."

"Ugh, maybe. Now why don't you get lost?" he said affectionately, patting her on the head, "Go back to your new little friends, or whatever. Someone actually your age."

"Hey, I'm not  _that_  young any more."

She hopped to her feet, and stood on her tiptoes to make a point before running ahead.

"Tell that to me when you're taller," Daisya shouted after her.

"It's a deal," she called back, now at the top of the stairs. "By the way, you'll probably read better if you turn the book right-side-up!"

Daisya stared into space for a moment as the stairs creaked, and looked back at the text in front of him. Sure enough, it was upside down.

Kids these days had no respect for their elders.

…

"Hey, gramps! Long time no see."

"Ah, Daisya. It's been at least a few months since the last time you called me old."

Daisya skipped the last few feet, and slid on to the bench beside Marie. A quick check showed that nobody was talking to him right this very moment; for Daisya, this was a free pass to go and start chatting.

"Aw, you missed me! Any near death experiences you got to talk about? Interesting people? Cool instruments?"

Marie's information was rarely short of interesting. The guy saw — didn't see — the world in a different way from everyone else, and seemed to have the brains to back it up. Even just asking him to describe a rock was an experience. Your average loser would just say it was grey, but he'd talk about how it smelled, and the pitch it rang out with when you hit it with something.

"Nothing to rival what I heard you were up to in the Yugoslavic region, but we did run into some rather unique situations. Would you like to hear about Australia?"

"That's the convict colony? Right?"

"Yes. The government is brutal and the weather is bad…"

"So like Russia?" Daisya interrupted. "Let me tell you, some of the stuff that happens there is just. Ew."

"Maybe," continued Marie, smoothing over the break, "But it's hot, not cold. As I was saying, the folk songs are incredible. They're just — they are history and art in one."

Marie's face lit up as he said it; sure, he was calm, but the moment you got him talking about something he liked, he was even bouncier than Jeanne.

After how sombre he'd been the last time Daisya saw him, it felt nice to see him cheered up.

"Don't leave me hanging! What do they do that's so special?"

"It's hard to describe. It is — tapestries are a recording of stories and histories, and yet they are also just tapestries?"

"Well, yes…"

"The songs are songs, with tunes and lyrics, but some songs are histories that go on for centuries. And the singers have all of it in their memories, more than books."

Daisya whistled. "I don't think I can even remember the words to my school songs."

"Mm."

Marie didn't even try to deny it. Hey, that was kinda rude!

"Where's Kanda? I haven't heard him around."

Daisya sighed, and slumped down on the table. That was why it had been a boring few days, with Lenalee off with Komui all the time.

"He's off on a check-up mission with Isaac for a couple of weeks more. I betcha he'll be  _begging_  to have me back after that."

This time, he didn't give Marie an opening for one of his pointed silences.

"Say, are you back for good? You've been running off to all the different branches since like, a year and a half ago. They were even going to move your room!"

He trailed off, but Marie didn't answer for a moment. No sense of dramatic timing. Good old Marie.

"I'm back now. They needed me for intelligence."

"Like, smarts or data?"

This got something that was almost a chuckle out of him.

"Data. I can eavesdrop."

"And don't I know it."

Daisya waited to see if Marie was going to fill in the blanks.

Nope.

Okay, a few seconds was enough. He really had to do  _all_  the work some times, to get the good stuff out of the guy. At least Kanda found the time to rag at him in between.

"I'm guessing all that secret intel stuff is under wraps, so I'm not gonna ask about that."

"Good."

"Do you want to do some sparring later on? Kanda hasn't been around to drill me, so my strikes are getting pretty weak."

He gave Marie his best puppy eyes, because sparring was almost as good as dancing for a good time, and then realized that he could see 'em. Damn. It's been too long without someone who could hear you through three walls.

But Marie seemed to get the effect, smiling a bit.

"Do you think you're up to it? Kanda told me you got into a serious scrape a few months back."

"Man, that healed up months ago. I was  _born_  to be an exorcist."

Marie had to be making fun of him — his smile had broadened, and what, what was he doing now, getting up just after he'd come to see him?

"Is that so? The synch scores I heard from Reever would say otherwise."

"You're on. Though, it kinda sucks that we can't practice that resonance trick of ours, now that you're back."

He could tell by the slight tightness in Marie's expression that the guy was about to drop something good, but he didn't want to be kept in suspense.

"Whatcha looking like that for?"

Marie chuckled just once, and smiled.

"The old section chief retired, Daisya. We're free to practice if we wish."

"Sick! Give me five —" he tripped on the bench in his haste to get up, catching himself just in time. "No, three minutes — just need to get my stuff. 'Kay. Got it. Innocence drills. See you in a bit!"

As he sprinted for the stairs, he heard Marie's muted laughter on the lower edge of hearing.

…

"Oh boy—"

Daisya wiped at the water dripping down his face, having emptied the canteen over his head. It didn't do much to cool him off, after the match they'd just had.

"—where the hell did you learn something like that?"

"From you, remember?" Lenalee smirked.

"Ugh. I know I taught it to you, but I never expected you to actually, like,  _learn_  it."

They were finishing up a few cool-down lengths of the courtyard, red-faced and panting.

"You'll just have to make up some more moves, then!"

"Yeah, otherwise you're going to beat me."

It had been ages since the last match with his unit — Tiedoll and Kanda versus Daisya and Marie — now that the General had finished the basic training, so Lenalee was his practice partner. Actually, next month would mark the one year mark since they started doing this, when they had time.

"Don't be silly, Daisya, you're still better than me."

"And I'm three and a half years older than you, in case you forgot." He reached over to ruffle her hair. "It takes practice."

"I know, I know, but do you think I'll be able to catch up to you?"

Something about the way she said it made him think that she wasn't just talking about football.

"Well, maybe not me, because I'm the best at football, but yeah! You've just got to stick to it."

He couldn't see her face from his position beside her, but for a moment she seemed to deflate, the usual post-match buzz trickling out like sand from an hourglass. Nothing Daisya could understand, no, definitely not the same feeling as in the beginning, when no one else wanted to play with him or when he realized that the rest of the kids were on a mission.

"I…will."

"Lena? You good?"

They halted halfway across the yard, and Lenalee gently reached up to take his hand off of her head, and place it down by his side. Then, she smiled, not without sadness.

"I'm fine, Daisya, really."

Hard to believe she was only ten, sometimes, with how much she tried to act like nothing was wrong. They started off again, and Daisya decided it was worth a try.

"It's not bad mustache again, is it? I thought those finder said he was holed up over in Asia, but he's as bad as dust. Turns up goddamn  _everywhere_."

 _Mind your language_ , his mother snapped in his head. Bah, what did she know. Lenalee dealt with worse from Kanda every day.

"No. No. Not him. It's just, I had to run last mission with two finders."

"That so. Which ones?"

"Dora and Bailey."

Her voice had grown quieter second by second, until now it was the hushed tone of someone (someone who wasn't Daisya, that is) speaking in a library or a church.

"Dora…yeah." He almost had to wince. "Bailey, she's the new one, right? Bit older than your four-eyed brother?"

"Yes."

"Well, I saw Bailey off with Dris the other day."

 _I didn't see Dora_. The unspoken words ran between them.

"I got to her in time."

_I couldn't save Dora. I couldn't get to her in time._

Finders lasted six months or so. Newbies less, vets more. Dora had been on for about a year so far, mostly as an exorcists' escort, which wasn't too bad. She'd get a good send-off with the others in the ceremony at the end of the month.

She'd had a soft spot for animals, and she'd knitted Lenalee a scarf for her birthday. She was plump, and made good small talk with the other adults, and was reliable in an emergency. Daisya hadn't been on a mission with her, but he'd seen her around, and Lenalee had talked to him about her. She talked to everyone about everyone.

"Gotcha," Daisya said. He didn't apologize, because there was nothing he could have done about it. "So you just need to be faster next time. You'll get there."

"No."

All of a sudden, Lenalee had turned to face him, and stamped her foot down. "Don't you understand? It's Dora! She's never — she's not coming back. And it's my fault."

Her voice cracked and broke down, and try as she might Daisya could still her the stuttering where her lungs were trying to heave sobs. Just like his crybaby sister back home. No — that was wrong. She  _was_ his crybaby sister, and they were here, at home.

 _Daisya,_  his mother scolded, _what did I tell you about making your sister cry?_

"No way." He took her by the shoulders in what he hoped was the right way to calm her down. Yes, she was really only ten. "Look, would you ever  _decide_ not to save her? No, because she's your friend. It's just…it's just what happens. Sometimes it's just not our choice."

A couple of tears slid down her face, though she wasn't ashamed of them as Daisya would be. What a lame reassurance that was, that there wasn't anything anybody could do about it. If he was in a story, it would be a cop-out of a speech.

But it was true.

"So it's God, or something?" asked Lenalee, staring at him as if she were trying to challenge it, or something. It was almost an accusation, but not directed at him.

"I have no idea. Not a single clue."

Whether that was the right answer or not, he also didn't know, but it made her laugh.

"Daisya! Come  _on_."

"Hey, it's the truth."

She pushed his arms off, and scrubbed at her eyes, then set her face in the usual slight smile. "I know. Let's get back now, so we can clean up before lunch."

"Fine by me. Can you get me an extra bread roll?"

"Why?"

He grinned at her, as if everything was back to normal. "'Cos Jerry likes you better, so he won't yell!"

"All right, if you say so."

…

A strained noise almost jerked Daisya out of his reverie, but for now the medication let him have a few more fragmented dreams.

…

"Hey, look at this!"

He knew he sounded like some dumb kid who'd just gotten a puppy and didn't know how much work they were, but this was great! This was exciting, entertaining, not boring!

The Charity Bell hung in midair glowing slightly, at about the level of his sternum. As he moved his hands around it, drawing them closer and further away, the pitch changed, going from a tinkling little doorbell to the rich and chocolate tones of a church bell.

"Didn't you hear me, old man? Get your ass over here."

"Don't be rude, Daisya," said Tiedoll's voice from about five inches behind his right ear, "I'm right behind you—"

"Jesus  _Christ!_ "

"And don't take the name of the Lord in vain."

How the hell could that old guy move so fast? And quietly enough that he couldn't notice it too, the son of a bitch.

"Yeah, yeah, I know," he shot back, too quickly to take the surprise from his voice and replace it with sarcasm.

"By the way, my child, you appear to have dropped your Charity Bell. Was there something you wanted to show me?"

Daisya opened his mouth to snark back, then shut it, and looked at the space between his hands where the Innocence was.

Had been.  _Shit_.

"I — it — you heard it, you should know!"

"Heard what?"

"I got it to change tones while floating it. See? I told you I could do it."

He grinned eagerly up at the General, waiting for the inevitable approval and easy forgiveness. But Tiedoll only smiled sadly, and shook his head.

"I'm afraid my hearing's getting bad in my old age, so I didn't hear a thing. All I see is that you dropped the Bell, if indeed it was floating in the first place."

" _What?_ "

"Please repeat the exercise until you have it ready, I said. I will come over when you call me, but in the mean time, if a bit of a shock is enough to make you lose control, you'll have to stay far away from any fights."

As the conversation went on, Daisya's grin had frozen into a grimace, and eventually morphed into utter confusion and then indignation.

"You can't do  _that_. How else will I learn if you won't let me watch?"

"You'll learn by  _practicing_ , my boy. Just like everyone else."

He gave Daisya one last paternal smile, and walked back to the easel on the other side of the plateau.

God  _damn_ that bastard, pulling a prank like that.

He kind of had to admire it.

…

"Surprise!"

They'd been up all night. Marie had been sighing in the corner for the last hour, the kitchen would need an extra-good scrubbing tonight, three inches of Lenalee's hair had to be cut off, Komui was panicking, Daisya could have sworn he got eggshell up his nose, and in the end a very grumpy Jerry had to be woken up at 5 in the morning, but here it was.

The alleged cake.

The layers were sliding off of one another, propped up by broken chopsticks to keep them on the plate. The cake was burnt on the edges and, as they would find out, still gooey in the middle, and covered with off-white frosting that dripped and slowly oozed down on to the plate. Twelve chopsticks were pushed upright in the cake, with a bit of kerosene on the end to make them light up when the time came. In short, it was a disaster, but Daisya was inordinately proud of it. Marie had given up just after the oven had caught on fire, and Lenalee had been hauled off by Komui to get a hair cut halfway through, but he'd seen it through from beginning to end.

Of course, he could have made one before, but he hadn't thought to ask about birthdays until Jeanne and Kiki had theirs, and when Lenalee had hers Jerry wouldn't let him near the kitchen, and finally for his birthday he'd been out mucking around the backwoods with Kanda and Lenalee, and since Marie and Tiedoll hadn't been there he'd just had a leftover slice with a candle in it when he got back. Not bad, but not as fun as making your own.

Now, with Kanda's birthday, he hadn't been about to give up the opportunity. No matter if Jerry, and Komui, and Marie, and even Lenalee had told him in varying ways that Kanda wasn't a birthday person. They obviously didn't know that a person's birthday wasn't about them, it was about everyone else getting to eat cake and make fun of them. Seriously, they wouldn't be much fun otherwise.

And so he was standing, arms crossed and grinning, in front of a glaring Kanda, with Lenalee and Marie lurking in the background, the former smiling awkwardly and the latter trying to hide his embarrassment.

"Happy birthday! Whaddaya think?"

Kanda just narrowed his eyes, and Daisya felt a tiny bit disappointed. Don't know why, because if Kanda didn't like it there was more for him.

"What. Is that."

"It's a cake, dumbass. Look at it. Icing, layers, the works."

"Who told you my birthday."

"Let's see…"

"Don't tell me."

"…Komui, and Lenalee and Marie confirmed it, and probably Jerry and everyone else would have told me if I'd asked."

He took a step closer to Kanda, and glared back at him.

"So, you gonna eat it or not? 'Cos if not, I'm taking it."

"It's breakfast."

"That's why you've got to decide."

Kanda's scrutinizing stare shifted down from Daisya to the cake he'd made. It wasn't an attractive cake, Daisya knew, but it was what was on the inside that counted. In this case, burnt and undercooked cake.

"You want to eat all that?"

"Sure thing."

"Then I'll take some."

Why it was, he didn't know, but something warm bubbled up inside Daisya and turned into a laugh.

"I'm happy that you like it so much!"

"Moron."

In the background, Marie and Lenalee slunk over to another table, leaving Daisya to chatter away in peace. What a nice gesture.

…

Something jolted, and Daisya's eyes flew open. Medicine. The pain was flowing over him again.

He scrabbled at his pocket, got out the vial, and through the noise and the shaking of the train downed a couple. Good.

Slowly, his surroundings filtered though his senses. Rattle and bump of the train on the tracks, Kanda's ever-so-faint warmth — god damn, that kid was practically a lizard, no wonder he needed such a thick coat — the shaking of the body that held him, and the sound, just on the edge of hearing, of sobs.

A drop of warm water fell on his face, and slid down his cheek.

This was a dream. This had to be a dream.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The random latin is just a bad google translate rewriting of Dixit Dominus and a couple of mass movements, because I wanted the [slow mo, trippy special effects, dramatic choir] effect, but it's hard to do in writing. Benjamin Britten's Agnus Dei from Missa Brevis conveys the right amout of creepiness for DGM, if you want some background music, but there aren't too many good recordings of it.
> 
> I'm thinking of giving this another edit later, by which I mean I'm going to forget about it and go back to read this chapter and cringe in three months, but no matter!
> 
> Anyway, someone give these kids a blanket and a library of self-help books. Please. Please.

The cold, slim blade of Mugen cut down his wrist, and and then was cast on to the grass beside.

…

_Dominus_   _a dextris reges confregit in die irae tuae amans_

_Judicabit in ecclesiarum_

…

Kanda watched the scene through the eyes of what the Order called God: he saw from far away a small figure, hunched over and reaching outwards over a corpse, as if in prayer.

Only now it seemed such a weak gesture, lost in the immense shadow of the abbey.

In a matter of minutes, flowing fast as sand through an eggtimer, the doll-like supplicant's expression changed. The initial anxiety took on a sheen of agony, but quickly settled in a kind of mania, the lips drawn back in a grimace even as the eyes burned.

Of course, from this distance none of that was visible. It was just how he remembered it.

…

_Implebit ruinas, conquassabit capita in domum tuam_

…

It seemed the body was no more than a bundle of rags, flopping over when Kanda set it on the ground, now back in his body and looking through his eyes. The head especially kept shifting, until finally he braced it against the rough bark of a white spruce.

Its mouth was full of blood. Was it his own? Was it Daisya's? Kanda could still see it on its lips, unmoving under the forest's shelter

…

_Kyrie eleison_

…

In the end, he had gone in for the kill. Flitting steps and cautious jumps had led him to the bell tower's top in a matter of seconds, even as the stone shifted beneath him. This Innocence was a wounded animal, lashing out at any and all who drew near, and like an animal it would be put down.

…

_Gloria Patri, et Filio, et Spiritui Sancto_

…

Landing lightly on the ground, Kanda gazed up at the light that shuddered in the sky above. The bell cracked like eggshell, piece by piece disintegrating as the Innocence within burned through the shell without, in doing so leaving the building around them. Stone crashed, for each scrap of iron that winked out there was a section of a battlement that fell to earth, shaking but never swaying the boy that there stood watching.

He never looked away. Though the air cracked with thunder, his eyes were raw and fixed on the green-tinged glow of the thing that had destroyed so much.

…

_Sicut erat in principio, et nunc, et semper, et in secula seculorum_

_Amen_

…

Laid out on the bed, he was alive, at least, and could be lucid, but for how much longer?

Kanda watched him sleep, as he had after the fire, after the river, not knowing if he would keep risking his life for the Innocence.

…

_Agnus Dei_

…

Wondering, without really feeling anything but anger, if he would keep risking his life for him.

…

_Qui tollis peccata mea_

…

Not knowing if next time, he would be too late for Daisya.

…

_Miserere mei_

…

It was hard to know if he had ever been young or would ever be old, but now Kanda felt too young, and powerless.

…

_Agnus Dei_

…

Now, he realized, that he did have a family, and that somehow they had been with him from the beginning, good and bad.

…

_Odi te_

…

But there and then, with Daisya lifeless and the rest of them so far away, he had been alone.

…

_Dona mihi pacem_

…

He didn't wake up, really, but some bolt of panic threw him into consciousness. At any rate, Kanda's eyes opened.

It was no surprise that Daisya was still out cold, in the pale light, or that he'd nearly fallen off the seat. He tossed and turned even like this, without someone to kick him into submission.

Slowly, hands light so he didn't wake his partner and start of the usual stream of complaining, he pulled Daisya back up, and after a moment's thought pulled the bandages back and off his face where they'd grown loose. He'd probably been too lazy to change them since Kanda had done it. Though why that dumbass kept on wearing them now, he didn't know. The burns had finished healing a few months after he'd got them.

He remembered some snippets of words they'd passed between them one morning.

Probably too vain to take them off, then. Or he thought they looked interesting. Typical Daisya. He didn't even have to get half the scars, in the first place.

_He's going to die,_  Kanda thought,  _if he keeps this up. He was always going to die. Idiot._

He traced the markings down his cheeks.

_I should've left him._

_I should have fucking killed him, before something like this happened._

It took some time before he breathed out, hands shaking. Then, as if to remind himself of something, he pushed up his sleeve, and looked at the scars beneath, running up his arm where he'd needed blood, and needed it  _now_.

You always had to pay, sooner or later, for what you got.

If he continued to save Daisya, would he be alive to find _that person_?

Would it even matter?

Something broke in him, and made a disgusting noise.

The sound of crying.

…

Asleep or awake, Kanda was in some other world. No way in hell he'd break down like this, not in front of him of all people. Not unless either of them wanted a fight on so little sleep.

For a while, Daisya stayed still and watched, considering his options. The easiest one would be to just go back to sleep, pretending nothing had happened.

_Have I ever seen Kanda like this?_

Alternately, he could just move to the other bench, and use the windowsill as a pillow. Not quite as comfy, but still better than a tongue-lashing.

_What happened? Did something go down while I was knocked out?_

Running into the hallway would have been a good idea too, but it was too narrow to set up camp, so he'd have to stand until he got the all-clear.

_Kanda's not supposed to be_ sad _. I mean, of course he probably is, sometimes, but_ —  _he's not supposed to be hurt, he's not supposed to get killed, he's not supposed to cry. This isn't how it should be._

He could also…

_It looks painful._

He dragged a hand across his eyes, and swallowed hard, wishing the pills would kick in faster.

Who was he kidding.

_It feels so painful_.

Pushing Kanda's arms away, he sat up.

"Hey, Kanda."

His partner seemed to be moving through treacle, turning his head towards him and staring him through, but maybe he was still half-asleep, because his eyelids had slipped down a bit underneath the long lashes. At any rate, he wasn't glaring.

"You okay?"

Yeah, it was a stupid question, but it was the only one he could ask.

"Figure it out," said Kanda quietly.

"You haven't called me an idiot, yet, so something must be wrong." Daisya forced a grin.

"Shut up."

"Or maybe I'm wrong—"

As quickly and sharply he moved in combat, Kanda had wrapped his arms around him.

"I told you to shut up," he croaked. His voice was raw.

Daisya complied for once, and sat still, waiting for this to pass.

There was something, something here. Something more that he'd remembered, while he slept, that Kanda had once told him.

A lie, of course, but he'd thought it was truth at the time.

…

Training days were all different, otherwise Daisya would have slacked off earlier, to make Kanda come and drag him in. Sometimes he'd just do the usual exercise of hitting targets with a football — it barely counted as work, even — and other times he'd be running laps around headquarters with Lenalee until his legs broke down and he started coughing up something disgusting. Less often, he'd play scales with Marie, seeing how finely he could tune the Charity Bell to background noise or the Noël Organum, to up the synch capacity and the force of the sound wave.

Today, he traded punches, kicks, and blocks with Kanda, practicing two or three variations of a move over and over until he started getting bored and Kanda gave up, and moved into free fighting. They wouldn't leave until Kanda had seen him use some set number of moves with some amount of competency, so it kept Daisya on his toes. Sometimes literally, when he worked the dances of his childhood and that Tiedoll had taught him into the steps. Hah, one day, one glorious day, he'd slipped past Kanda's punch, grabbed the outstretched wrist, and braced his arm on Kanda's waist to pull him up and around in a glorious leap. Of course, he'd gotten quickly thrown when he tried to finish it with a twirl, but for a moment they'd been dancing.

Not that he didn't find the time to do it most days, in his room or with Isaac or Jeanne, but with Kanda it was that much more of a victory.

But enough of that. He should be concentrating.

This session involved some more complex block-throw combinations, with entire sections of a match as the technique instead of just one or two moves. Daisya loved it. One you knew the steps, you could just do it that much more fluidly, moving around to Kanda's deft counters.

And finally, at the end of the session, throwing him down on to the mat in a surprise attack. Take that!

"Ha! Ha ha!"

Kanda just glared at him, but he was more miffed than truly angry, and Daisya was willing to be that he was more than a little amused.

"What."

"Just wait 'till I tell everyone I beat  _Kanda_  in sparring."

Daisya savoured the words on his tongue, before remembering to get Kanda in a pressure-point hold.

"We weren't sparring," said Kanda flatly. Yep, definitely trying to seem angry. There wasn't any venom in it. But what was that he was saying? Not sparring? Daisya'd be damned if he couldn't beat Kanda after two. Entire. Years.

"What? Then what were you doing?"

"I was drilling you. You're too lazy to work unless you're trying to beat someone."

The smug bastard—

Kanda moved fast as a snake, cutting off Daisya mid-thought. Somehow, he kicked him off balance, then flipped around and, lying underneath him, knocked his balance off. Before Daisya could react, he spun the two of them around, ending up kneeling over Daisya, left arm on his shoulder and right holding his wrist down to the ground.

"See."

Even lying down, paralyzed and looking into Kanda's eyes, a thrill ran up his spine. Not the comfortable fire of victory, but something sharper. The need to  _win_. To beat Kanda at his own game, even if he had to spent the next year fighting him.

Kanda was better than him by miles; still, he had to say what he was thinking right now.

"But I was fighting you!"

Kanda paused, still holding him down, and smirked. It was something he'd been doing more and more often over the months, Daisya noticed — not smiling, thank God, but the self-satisfied twist of the lips that was one of his own favourites.

"No, dumbass. You're not ready for the real stuff yet."

"Tell that to me when I kick your fucking face in for going easy on me," Daisya shot back, returning the grin.

"Don't make me laugh."

"Hey, I'm not joking."

It couldn't be more obvious that he was. Kanda shot him a quick look of disdain before stepping off and helping him back to his feet.

"You're an idiot."

"Excuse me?"

"You could never hurt me."

…

It occurred to Daisya only now, leaning into Kanda's hunched and empty frame, hollowed out from exhaustion, that he could hurt Kanda.

Before he could follow that train of thought, he realized Kanda was talking. To him.

"What?"

"I  _said_ , you're a dumbass."

_People don't love people like us_. That was a good old solid fact, one he could rely on. Parents, siblings, schoomates, they knew the drill. Honestly, he didn't need to know what Kanda had said before.

They'd had this conversation a few times too many.

"I know, I know," he sighed, "You're not going to save me next time—"

"No."

Kanda's grip grew tighter.

"You know save you next time," he said, voice still scratched, like a recording on a gramophone. "It's no fucking use saying I won't."

Daisya could feel his head lift from his shoulder, though he still couldn't see his face. His expression could have been sleepy, or stone-like, but Daisya had known him for too long not to know that his eyes would be sharp, and hard as flint.

"I'm going to save you next time, and the time after that, and after that."

Slowly, Daisya exhaled, keeping himself in check. It was hard.

"I know."

People may not love people like him, and Kanda least of all, but Daisya knew he was too duty-bound to just let him die.

Some time passed before Kanda broke the silence.

"I guess you did keep your promise."

For once, Daisya drew a blank. He'd made so many joking and serious ones over the years that it was hard to remember which was which.

"What promise?"

"Alma. You fucking figured out who Alma was."

Kanda's hold on him weakened, but he didn't draw away. A rickety cart going over ruts with a jolt, off in the forest. He'd said he'd be too proud to die if Kanda gave him a challenge, but really he'd just wanted to know. Know who it was that made Kanda freeze the first night they'd been in real danger, in the fire. Alma, who Kanda hated more than anything else.

And to tell the truth, Daisya still didn't have a clue who Alma was. Just a kid, who'd been Kanda's friend, and who'd tried to kill him.

"Kinda. You know me, I can do anything."

"Except just do your job and  _not die_."

That's also what the conversation had been about, when Kanda had cussed him out for enjoying himself, instead of working for the Order like a mindless machine. If he'd been so angry about that, why hadn't he just, maybe, gone and told four-eyes? Turned him over to the Director for a talking-to? There were half a dozen easier ways to do it, without blaming him for trying to save his life, even now,  _even after all this._  He'd thought they'd sorted it out just days ago, but no.

_People don't love people like us_. Antonina had said it like a secret, something that would save him one day, but he still couldn't figure out what it meant. Did it mean exorcists? Dancers? People who never shut up when they were supposed to? People so covered in scars they were nothing but a broken reminder of what went wrong?

Kanda couldn't leave well enough alone.

" _That's_  what it was about?" He couldn't help but snap. "Your stupid hang ups over the Order? It has nothing to do with me, what they do. Which you still haven't told me, if that's even the reason you care."

The sound of laboured breath and creaking steel kept it from being a silence. Then, a sigh.

"I'm right, you don't have to tell me."

"Shut up."

"So why the hell have you been lying about it?" Daisya let the words out through a set jaw. "Why can't you just  _say_ —"

Now his words were torn and ragged at the edges, almost ready to crack, but Kanda saved him from having to finish.

"I don't want you to die."

It was the softest he'd heard Kanda speak, muffled by the loose fabric of his cloak. It was the closest to the truth he'd ever gotten.

"I tried to make you stop your fucked-up sense of fun," he said, voice now louder and more raw, "And you didn't listen to me."

Daisya felt the need to laugh. They'd known each other for a year or so at the time, but Kanda had still thought that would work? That he'd actually pay attention?

"When did I ever listen to you?"

A sharp hiss told him he'd hit a nerve, as Kanda's fingers tightened on him.

"Shut up! You should've fucking left me! Gone and bitched to that four-eyed bastard, and stopped trying to save me."

He was out of breath by the end of it, Daisya heard, and a shuddering noise told him he was right. Good. It was about time Kanda felt everything he'd put up with.

"Yeah," he agreed. "I should have. You'd just keep griping and deflecting and giving the same old damn lies whenever I really tried to talk to you about this stuff. Alma, dying, anything!"

He still held on to Kanda, but now the words were tumbling out beyond his control, putting something into speech that he'd barely realized himself.

"Daisya—"

"I mean, maybe I was just curious at first, but you know I make stupid decisions, so why did you never think it was because we were friends? Why did you just keep shutting me down? Maybe I just wanted to know how you—"

" _Daisya_."

Kanda pulled away, and looked him in the tear-stained eye.

" _What,_ " he said flatly, his own voice now cracked.

"I know."

Words he'd never thought about, but wanted to hear.

It had been two years since they'd met, but Kanda was the winter snows he'd dreamed about as a child, the rough outer sea and the world beyond his reach. He'd longed to know him for longer than that.

Why did we have to do this for so  _long?_

_I'm sorry._ That was what it meant _._

And then something hot burned in Daisya, stinging all the way up his throat and over his face.

"Yeah."

The tears dripped on to his cloak, and then on to Kanda's shoulder as he moved to catch him.

"Yeah, you'd better!"

It would have been a shout if he'd had enough breath in his lungs, but a whisper was the best he could do.

"You'd better be fucking  _sorry_ , after all the shit we've been through."

It was Kanda, now, who held him silently, until the tears stopped.

And for a while after.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This mini-plotline was born when I did some research on pre-20th century medication. Go figure.
> 
> Thanks to those of you still reading this! It stretched out way longer with way less frequent updates than I imagined, but I know I still have at least one reader. You know who you are. Hope the two of you enjoy!

The day they came back was a long and quiet one. Daisya's pride had probably made him go the last stretch, and hobble through the Order's side door before stopping, out of breath. It was either the pride or the pills he'd been swallowing like sweets.

Kanda wasn't about to bring it up now. Mostly because he was sleeping, and there was no argument to be had with a comatose body. Once Kanda had carried him up to the infirmary, he'd been dosed with something foul-smelling and drifted off not long after. Didn't have enough energy to complain, thank fuck, or even laugh.

The head nurse had waited the few minutes it took for him to fall asleep, then sat Kanda down in her tiny office for the medical debrief. What were the injuries? How had they healed so far?

Telling the truth was a stupid fucking idea, so he'd just made something up along familiar lines. Couple of broken ribs from a rough dodge, slipped in a river crossing and broke the leg pretty badly. Wear and tear from fighting could explain the shit job of patching up he'd done. The head nurse knew about the blood, or had guessed at what those bastards back at the Asian Branch had given him, and she wouldn't ask too many questions. Yeah, she bitched at him whenever he came back with Daisya in a state like this (was this the third time? Fuck, it had to be at least), but she wasn't stupid. She knew there were limits to what she could get out of him.

Unlike someone they both knew.

"Kanda?"

"What?"

"You should have been paying attention," the head nurse said sternly.

"I wasn't." He couldn't muster up a scowl for the occasion, and settled for just staring.

"I asked if you think we'll need to break the leg again."

"Yeah. 's been two or three weeks since it happened. He's been walking part of it."

The nurse sighed, but he knew it wasn't at him.

"He can't leave for at least a week, do you understand?"

"What's it to me?"

"Noise won't be back for some days; he and his team were rerouted through the Pyrenees. General Tiedoll is on a mission, and Daisya is far too impertinent to listen to me, never mind that all I'm trying to do is make sure he can  _walk_." She sighed again, and Kanda almost sighed with her. "So you'll have to keep him in line. He does listen to you, sometimes."

"Not enough." Not at all, unless it was just to try and get at him about Alma, and his past.

Then, he listened way too fucking closely.

"That should be all. Now," She smiled, creasing the skin at the corners of her eyes. "You take care of yourself, too. Off you go."

Kanda didn't need telling twice. All he wanted to do was get some food in him and hit the sack for a few hours.

He slid off the three-legged stool that was the other chair in the room, kicked it back beside the door, and left the head nurse turned around over her paperwork. There was the quiet but insidious sound of her scribbling down notes, to be stuffed into Daisya's already-bursting file. What a headache.

He closed the door behind him, and turned to head back through the long room that housed the hospital, but stopped. They'd put Daisya as close to the office as possible, and as far away from the door. There was the usual glass of water and bottle of meds on the table, but also a torn penny dreadful, and a pencil and paper. Something to keep him from getting too bored.

A smirk crossed his face. Sometimes Daisya felt like his own personal interruption, just another piece of grinning trash that God had tossed into his life for a bad joke, right down to the stocky build and the tattooed scars.

It felt weird, but not bad to see that he existed for everyone else, too.

The spare bandages Daisya carried everywhere had been used up in splints and slings along the way, but he had fucking insisted on keeping the old ones on, even though they were coming loose and getting stained. Fuck that, they were one big stain. The stains had their own stains. Coffee on top of blood on top of sweat.

But now the bandages had come off, showing the ugly, puckered tissue that spread over his head and down his shoulders.

He'd said that he kept them on because the burns still hurt, and then he'd said it was because of how it looked, and then he'd blathered his way out of it when Kanda had brought it up. It was all a bunch of bullshit. Probably. You never knew, with Daisya, how much he believed what he said.

Maybe he'd ask him about it once he was healed up again.

…

After the sixth night Daisya had spent in the infirmary, he woke up to a not unexpected shape looming over him. And a slow, burning pain on his skin.

"Oh."

He reached into his pocket, the one that he found out wasn't there any more. Right. Infirmary nightgown. No pockets. Must have stripped him when he was sleeping. Where would they put them? Table. Bedside table. Medicine on the bedside table.

He reached out and grabbed around until he felt the cold surface of the glass vial, and uncapped it, flicking off the stopper with a thumb. Damn. He'd have to sit up before taking them, otherwise they'd get stuck in his throat.

"Urrgh."

The other hand was pressed into service, pushing him up gently. He couldn't remember how many of his bones were intact, and how many had been broken again by the nurse to make sure they healed up properly.

It wasn't too bad, the pain that shot up through his chest. Maybe Kanda'd been feeling weird again and lent some blood to help.

Finally upright, he tossed a couple of the tablets down his throat, and grabbed the bedside glass of water to chase them down.

Now he was ready to function. He turned to the shape that had always been too tall, but seemed even bigger when you were still slumped over.

"When'd you get back? Kanda said you were off in Portugal."

"Last night," Marie replied gently, "You were out cold by the time I came up here."

"Thanks," Daisya said absently. Truth be told, he couldn't remember much of yesterday. "You get anywhere with your mission?"

It was a boring question after so many months, but Marie's answers could be interesting. The guy had a unique way of looking at the world.  _Not_  looking. That was the point.

"We had to take the long way home, but there were no other complications. The Noah was a false alarm."

"Come on, really? I've been waiting to hear about what they're actually like."

"General Sokalo says they're extremely cautious yet incredibly dangerous."

Daisya remembered the few times he'd seen the giant of a man. The last memory he had was of a shouting match with Tiedoll and General Nine on one side, and General Sokalo on the other. He'd never known how big the old man's vocabulary was until then.

"He didn't  _actually_  say that in those exact words, did he?"

"No."

"Got it."

Marie turned his head towards the rest of the ward, as if to check on something, and then back to Daisya.

"Are you all right?" asked Marie, quiet, like he was talking to some jumpy animal.

"Of course!" He gave Marie his best obnoxious grin. "What does it look like?"

"It looks like you've got more broken bones than you know the names of."

"Joke's on you, I actually paid attention in first aid."

"I stand by what I said."

"Hey! That was a nice one, though."

They had a laugh, a good one, but it died down fast. Marie was back to his serious self. Daisya hadn't noticed it at the time, what with him being gone so much of the time, but he'd grown out of the shy kind of quiet he'd had. Back then, he'd been young. Now he felt more like…

Almost like the old man, but still a ways off.

He swallowed hard.

"Tell the truth," said Marie, "Are you recovering well?"

"Pretty near. I've got my medicine, so if I just keep popping it, then—" He waved his hands in a kind of shrug, giving up on words for the time being.

"Everything should be all right. I see."

It has taken Daisya a while to figure it out, but Marie actually did have some different tones of voice beyond neutral and patient. This one was a bit ironic.

"Well, anyway, I'm pretty sure we got to the objective."

"'Pretty sure'?"

"Eh gotta say, it was hard. " He put up his best dumb kid face, to throw Marie off the scent. "This Innocence was pretty vicious. I think it got hidden in a bell, but I was knocked out when Kanda found it. It kept trying to knock the place down on top of us."

"I see."

Marie's body language closed up just slightly, the shoulders squaring from their comfortable slouch.

"You should probably ask him," Daisya continued, watching his reaction, "He was in a bad mood, so I didn't bother."

"I already did, but he pointed me to you."

"What?" Daisya made a face he knew Marie couldn't see, and shrugged. "Figures. He's still sulking, so I guess I have to fill you in."

Marie smiled wryly. "He is, unfortunately. Go ahead."

"The Innocence was in this an abbey or castle or something — at least it looked like a castle — and it was pretty beat up. The castle, I mean, not the Innocence…"

…

The story dragged on, with Marie listening patiently. Daisya seemed to be enjoying himself, and with a few weeks as Kanda's partner, an active audience would do him some good.

Actually, he was doing far better than Marie had expected. Kanda made it sound like Daisya was just barely clinging to life and sanity some days before, but here he was chattering like a songbird. He couldn't help but smile. Hard to believe that for a moment, he had been worried about him.

Not concerned, not exasperated, but wading through the cold, thin waters of worry.

Among the exorcists, no one knew who would be next.

"And the windows — hey, what're you laughing at?"

Daisya's voice took on an comically suspicious note.

"Nothing," he lied, straightening his features. "Go on."

"Okay, so I, because I'm smart, figured out…"

About halfway through the next section of the story, there was a break in the flow of words filled by the soft clink of glass on wood. Daisya must have taken some more of his medication. This had to be more than the recommended dose.

The story's flow suddenly shifted to a more rehearsed cadence as it started to close.

"…so I wasn't really paying  _that_  much attention, because it's way too tedious, so I got knocked out by a chunk of stone or some bullshit, and then I think I fell off the stairs. Pretty embarrassing but hey, not really my fault."

The last sentence was genuinely sheepish, but Marie had his suspicions about the rest of it. People's voices betrayed lies as much as did their faces, and he'd had years to memorize Daisya's patterns, interspersed as they were with laughter.

"I see." It was ironic that he still used the phrase, but sight was so built into language that he could not say it any other way.

He heard Daisya stretch, then grunt in pain and exhale.

"You hear anything about when they're letting me out of here? It's been ages since I actually broke my leg, and Kanda healed me up pretty good then."

"It's only been a few days, Daisya. I'll have a word with the head nurse."

"Awesome. She still hasn't forgotten that time I kinda threw us off that cliff and had to get all my ribs put back together, but I think she likes you."

" _I_  still haven't forgotten it. Daisya, you don't have a good record with injuries."

"Ugh, you got that right. I already look like some kind of carcass from the burns, you know, so this can't be much worse. I'm not going to have much luck with the ladies, am I?"

The sheets rustled again, and there was the clicking of polished wood on wood. Crutches.

"I don't think the scars would be the problem." The youngster in him had to say it.

"Ma _rie_ —"

"Where are you going?"

"Figured it was time for a little walk. My leg's still wrecked, but I need to get the blood flowing, otherwise I'll get gangrene, or something."

"I'll help you up."

"Thanks." There it was. The tiny crack in the throat that showed when Daisya's words were heartfelt, once in a blue moon. For just a moment his scratchy adolescent voice slipped down a notch into a more musical, lower tone.

They hadn't practiced songs together, in a while. The crutches clicked one against the other, then made a more resonant noise once the end of one was placed firmly on the floor.

He held out a hand, and felt Daisya's palm settle on it.

"All ready?"

"Yes."

"I'll hop up in three, two, one—"

Marie caught the weight as Daisya got the one crutch steady, and then let go to grab the other one.

"All right?"

"Yep! Let's get going, slowpoke."

Marie stood to follow the disjointed, dragging noise out of the room, but held back for just a moment. Daisya had forgotten his medication, one nearly-empty bottle on the bedside table.

A handful of half-formed thoughts crystallized into one idea, and he reached out and grabbed it quietly as only he could before slipping it into his coat pocket. The head nurse could arrange a placebo.

"Hey, coming along or not?"

"Yes, in a second."

Maybe it was that Daisya never worried about himself. Nature abhors a vacuum.

…

As the seventh evening turned into the seventh night after Daisya got back, he and Kanda were still sitting in Lenalee's room, passing around her German phrase book. They were all technically supposed to know English, French, German, and Russian, but Tiedoll spoke French with all his apprentices, and English was the de facto language of the Order. It was really only German and Russian that were the problem.

"Hey." Daisya's eyes flicked back and forth. "What's the time? Seven?"

Kanda looked at him oddly.

"It's eleven."

"Well  _that_ was off by a while. Still, I guess it's close enough to dinner time."

"Not at all."

"Shut up, Kanda, and let me have some peace."

"Shut up yourself."

"It's not that early, is it?" Lenalee chimed in, "Even my brother says I should be in bed by ten."

Daisya shrugged. "Guess so."

A few minutes later, he grabbed his crutches and shuffled out, muttering something neither of them could make out.

Lenalee waited for the footsteps to fade before whispering to Kanda. "Are you sure he's all right?"

Kanda had no such courtesy, scoffing instead. "He's just bored."

…

The eighth night, Daisya was trying to dance around the issue, and Lenalee was trying to step on his foot.

"Kanda  _was_  saying that you hurt yourself really badly."

Daisya stumbled backwards, further into his room.

"Yeah, right. He didn't even tell Marie how I got hurt. I'm telling you, I just broke my leg."

Each word seemed to cut the other off, as if they were lined up to jump off his tongue but couldn't get the timing right. His feet, which never really were under his complete control, drifted further back.

"Still, you're acting like you're scared of something, and he's the only thing you could be scared of."

Daisya was only half aware of his left hand climbing up beside his cheek, curling his fingers to half-hide his sight. Jesus, what was it doing that for? It was  _his_ hand, he should be informed of all movements. And he should be able to grant written permission for them.

"Nah, him? I'm just tired, that's all."

He bumped into the wall, and flinched. He could feel Lenalee's eyes on him. Yeuuurgh. Get them off, get off, get off!

"Promise?"

"Promise."

"If you say so." She sounded entirely unconvinced. Entirely unconvinced...that was a real nice sentence. A smart-sounding phrase. Good job.

After she'd turned and shut the door, Daisya collapsed, crouched down on the floor. His heartbeat thrummed in his ears.

Oh,  _shit_.

It was like he was drowning. He couldn't breathe.

…

The ninth day, Daisya wandered down to breakfast with black circles under his eyes dark enough to warrant a comment from Lenalee.

"Did you get enough sleep last night?" she asked, passing the syrup to Kanda beside her, "You look tired."

Daisya waved a hand carelessly.

"Nah, I'm fine. Could you pass me an apple?"

Kanda tossed him a fruit, but he missed the midair catch.

"Hah."

"Shut up."

"Jerry's making some more french toast, if you want."

"I'm not that hungry."

…

The ninth afternoon, the three of them were walking down to the training halls, Lenalee out front and Kanda dragging his heels behind.

"Are you sure you're okay?" Lenalee asked again, "You looked pretty sick."

Daisya shrugged, and smiled wanly.

"That's just what happens when you run around on an empty stomach. I'm fi—"

Kanda caught him before he hit the floor.

…

The ninth night after Daisya got back, he was stuck in the infirmary. Marie went to visit his teammate again. The boy sounded not a bit tired when he spoke, a contrast to the story he'd heard in bits and pieces from Kanda and Lena.

"Yo. You back again?"

Marie nodded, and sat down in the chair.

"I wanted to see what it was  _this_  time."

Daisya shrugged.

"Just got sick and really, really tired. And my stomach's doing something weird. Flu, or whatever. Say, you should bring Kanda with you so I can give it to him. That kid never seems to get sick."

Daisya made a noise so indignant Marie had to smile.

"Kanda is lucky."

"Yeah, I've seen. He can heal pretty well, can't he?"

Marie chose his next words carefully. Daisya sounded like he was also trying to get some information.

"Yes, it's how he's so strong. His muscles heal as soon as they tear."

"No, I mean, he can heal  _other_  people, right?"

Daisya most certainly knew the answer to that question, or had eavesdropped, or had guessed.

"Where did you hear that?"

There was a pause.

"Dunno. Just heard it around. And if he can heal himself, there's nothing saying he can't use that on other people."

For once, Marie wished he had his sight back. Daisya's voice wasn't giving him any clues on  _why_ he wanted to know. Time for a change of tack.

…

"Kanda does heal quickly, yes, but it is…taxing to use that ability on others."

Marie gave the simple statement a bit of something ominous, but Daisya was damned if he could figure it out. His brain was fuzzy from this bed rest, and everything else. He couldn't focus.

"Say, Marie?"

"Yes?"

"Do you—" He started, then stopped. "I mean…"

"What?"

What was it he'd been trying to say?

Kanda spoke in riddles and half-sentences and implications, when he could be bothered to speak, and there were so many things Daisya wanted to know. So many things he had wanted to know, from the very beginning, when Tiedoll wandered in with a stupid haircut and the words that he'd always wanted to hear but never dared acknowledge.

Why me?

"I…"

He doubted any of the kids knew too much, and those that did were just as clammed up as Kanda. There were things he  _didn't_ want to know, things he specifically would never ask about. Lenalee, and the blood pooling in her skirts.

Is this a blessing? Is it a curse?

But Marie…he knew some things about Kanda. He was older than them all, and if he wasn't actually wiser he at least acted like it.

What is Innocence?

"Daisya?"

He could understand that the Innocence might want to lash out, against the world that hurt it, because that's what he'd done. But it had been twice, now, and it was no mere sting but a full-on tantrum that had nearly killed—

He didn't want to think about it. He couldn't  _stop_ thinking about it.

Do you know what happened to Kanda? What happened to Lena? How much did they tell you, about this or about anything? Who are you to him? Were you there back then, in Kanda's past? How do you know about all this? Do you know what happened to me? Do I know what happened to me? Do you have a family? Is this our family? How long is it until we die? Are we family? What is family? Why did I hate my old one so much and why do I want this one so  _badly?_

"Never mind. I'm okay."

His voice cracked, and he realized that all this time he'd been looking down and away, even though Marie wouldn't notice how bloodshot his eyes were, or how his muscles had tightened and pulled his face into a grimace.

But now Marie had turned to face him, standing just in front of him and listening intently. He was hunched over as he often was, arms drawn in and bent so that his hands braced off his knees, like a teacher bending down to a child's level. Yes, he was taking after the old man, but he was his own person, cooler and calmer without being any less kind.

"Daisya, do you want to stay at the Order?"

He froze. This wasn't how he'd planned for this conversation to go. He hadn't planned for any of it, of course, but even with him having grown up and all he hadn't expected Marie to do this.

"Yeah," he said, but it was harder than he'd thought to kick the words up his throat and out into the world. "Yeah, I do."

"I know."

It was a winding way to get to the real question, but now Daisya realized—

"It's everything I ever wanted." He tried to cough, and clean out his throat, but it was still too scratchy. "And you guys are still here. So—"

He couldn't even finish.

"I don't know. I don't know anything, you know?"

It was kind of cruel to make Marie put up with all of this, but he didn't feel like he could do this in front of Lenalee, or Kanda again, and Tiedoll would ask too many questions.

He looked up, and made contact with the milk-white eyes that he now realized had watched over him since he came back. Not watched, literally, but…

"But you know, don't you? Why some people don't like it?"

Marie exhaled, not quite sighing, and nodded.

"I do. I will not tell you what to do, but…" He shrugged. "I know what happens if you stay."

Daisya swallowed hard, and hummed a noise of acknowledgment. Marie wouldn't see it if he nodded. It all felt so weird, and tired, for him to be even  _thinking_  this…

"I missed my afternoon dose," he lied. "That's probably why I'm not doing so good."

"I see. I'll ask the Head Nurse for some more on my way out."

"Thanks, Marie."

…

Three days later, the sound of quick, clumsy footsteps above him forced Marie to stop on the staircase and call out.

"Daisya? What are you doing here?"

"Oh, hey! Old man!" The high-speed shuffling noise descended, stopping with him just down from his room. "What's up? Are we going to the dojo?"

"Yes, I am," he said, then added quickly: "But you shouldn't start training so soon."

The boy just laughed, and there was a kind of chalk-like noise that must have come from his crutches as he leaned on them, and the brushing of cloth as he swayed back and forth. Not even this injury compounded with the withdrawal could keep him from moving; in its own way, it was amazing.

"You're not going to catch me near there until the head nurse lets me. Man, that lady's scary! So why'd you call me down here?"

"I didn't think you'd be out this early," Marie said carefully.

"Oh, yeah, it was pretty weird. Felt like hell for a few days, then I kind of fainted, as Kanda's probably told you. Or maybe I did that. But then, here I am! Don't really feel too bad any more. Apart from the legs. And the ribs. You know what I mean. I'm not sick any more, just injured, you know. A delicate little lamb, if you ask Nursey."

"I'm glad."

"And you're not going to tell anyone about what we talked about, right? Kanda's going to go ballistic if he gets it into his head that I'm leaving."

"Don't worry, I won't. But why would Kanda do that?" He, of all people, should be able to understand.

"I dunno." Daisya's voice was now quieter, a sign that he had either thought about it for some time, or that he was lying. "Doesn't want another exorcist's worth of work, probably."

…

Marie knocked once on the door, and waited.

"Go away." He said it every time, just in case it was a finder, or someone who'd taken the wrong turn in the tower of identical doorways.

"It's me."

It took a few seconds of faint grumbling before Kanda undid first the bolts, then the lock. It had been the one thing he'd asked for, when they gave him a room. Finally, the latch clicked, and the door swung inward. It would be just enough for him to get through, and no more.

"Come in."

He obeyed silently, and waited until Kanda had re-bolted the door before starting.

"How many times have you healed Daisya?"

"What?"

"The blood. I remember you accidentally did it to me."

"I know. Why?" There was a wariness in his voice, creeping up and over the sullen attitude.

"I know we asked you for it, when he was burned. You know there was no other option. But the scarring…" He let the pause fill in what he was reluctant to say. "He's clumsy. It shows."

Kanda sat down on his bed, and shifted position, likely pulling his legs under him. They were all getting older now, but Kanda's clear voice still belonged to a child.

"Ugh. Yeah, he's still a dumbass."

"You told him about it?"

"Just about the blood, so he'd finally shut the fuck up about it."

"About what it costs you?"

Silence. Kanda was reluctant to admit any weakness, let alone something that could cost him his life.

"I won't tell him anything," he promised, "Unless you ask me to."

"I didn't tell him. Didn't fucking want him to start talking again."

He smiled, trying to put them both at ease. "I can understand."

"Huh."

It might have been wishful thinking, but that sounded something like a chuckle.

"So you had to use it this mission."

"Yeah."

"And before this?"

"Like I said, what do you care?"

"Kanda, you know already."

Kanda swallowed hard, and sighed.

"Fuck it, you're right. I only—" He bit down on the word, clearly struggling with the implications of what Marie had made him say. "I only do it when he's not going to make it through without it."

"Just the two times? Are you sure?"

Tiedoll knew far more about it than he did, but the general had made it far too clear that Kanda's injuries were as serious as any other's, if only in a different way. If Kanda hadn't been telling him the full story, there might be consequences for them all.

"A few more. Once he got a cut infected, so I slipped some in when I was doing first aid."

"That's—!"

"He's too damn stupid to notice!" snapped Kanda. "Now shut up."

"Kanda!" It was true, he would never tell anyone, but Marie had to step in now. "What did General Tiedoll tell you? You can't waste it — you know, if you use too much, you're going to die—"

"Trust me, I don't like helping him unless I have to."

"I do."

"You what?"

"Trust you. And I know you understand what's at stake, but you  _have_  to take care of yourself. If we have to deal with you and Daisya putting your lives in jeopardy, it will put more people in danger."

He was like a street cat, that prowled around you for minutes before he'd sniff at what was in your hand, and take a bite, before leaping away again. Not for the first time, Marie wanted to hear who was responsible for Kanda's origin.

"I know." The young voice cracked, then turned rough and raw. "Budapest."

"What?"

"What'd I fucking tell you guys about it? What happened?"

"That you woke up, Daisya was still sleeping, and the roof had started to collapse before you could get him to safety."

"Right."

"Kanda, why is this important right now?"

"Because that's not what happened." His words trembled like a glass in a singer's hand, ready to shatter again.

"I remember—"

"No. I lied. Hell, you guys probably guessed I was lying. I don't remember all of it. There was just — there was fucking smoke everywhere, and I didn't even know if I was damn well awake or asleep. No fucking clue. What I remember — I don't know, I was dreaming, and then he woke me up, and I was going to jump and I  _froze_."

There was a long, shuddering breath, and then the story continued in a voice now stony as lava hardened over a flow. Barely solid, and burning with an indescribable heat.

"He pushed me out. Two stories down, that fucking bastard. Right when everything went to shit. I think the lamp exploded. Something shattered, something glass, I know that. The roof fell in, on top of him, before he remembered he was supposed to fucking get out of there. I saw it. He was standing there, and then — and then he wasn't, and I couldn't even hear him screaming, and somehow he got out, I don't know how, and I had to catch him, and then…"

The story scrambled to a halt, sentences smashing into each other like marbles in the schoolyard, and Kanda couldn't speak his breathing still loud in Marie's ears.

"Fuck." His voice had long since broken.

What had they done to him?

"Fuck it. Fuck him. I don't know what he was thinking, but he told me not to rat him out, so I didn't. And I kept quiet, until now.  _Don't tell the old man._ " He spat it out like afterthought.

Marie couldn't say anything besides: "I won't."

But what he could stay there, and sit beside Yuu until the sound of his breathing quieted down, and became calm again.

**Author's Note:**

> I remember, we once went on a short hike. A few hours, mostly flat. It started raining about half an hour in. The weather wasn't the most fun, but the sensation of being in the lichen-draped spruce forest, under a heavy sky with no one else around was something to experience. That was after I wrote most of this, but I just have a thing for forests and rain.


End file.
